FRANCES E.WILLARD 





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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIIi 



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THE LIFE OF 
FP ILLARD 



WITH N' BY 

LADY HENRY SOM, 







OIS 
NATIONAL WC 




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by Lisa Stillniiin 

London, England. 18 



THE LIFE OF 
FRANCES E. WILLARD 

BY 

ANNA ADAMS GORDON 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

LADY HENRY SOMERSET 




EVANSTON, ILLINOIS 

NATIONAL WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION 

1912 






Copyright 1912 

BY 

The National Woman's Christian Temperance Union 



K%t ILafttafUe $tts<s 

R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY 
CHICAGO 



CCI.A319843 
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PREFACE 

As the sharer of the intimate life of Frances E. 
Willard for more than a score of her heroic years, 
it is at once a pleasure and a privilege to record a 
few of the memories of this great leader who made 
the world wider for women and more homelike for 
humanity. In this sacred task the co-operation of 
Lady Henry Somerset, Dr. F. W. Gunsaulus, Dr. 
Newell Dwight Hillis, and many other friends, is 
gratefully acknowledged. 

The accompanying biography is revised and 
abridged from a memorial volume issued in 1898. 
Subsequent honors paid to her sainted memory, the 
transient character of much of the material formerly 
used, the demand for a smaller book with wider per- 
spective of this life as unique as it was great, and 
the fact that there is within the reach of the public, 
no complete record of one of America's most noble 
citizens — these comprise a sufficient reason for the 
appearance of this work. 

Anna A. Gordon 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAOE 

Introduction by Lady Henry 

Somerset . • vii 

I. Ancestry and Childhood . . 1 

II. Student Life 22 

III. Religious Development ... 38 

IV. The Teacher 49 

V. The Traveler 67 

VI. The Organizer and Leader . 83 
VII. The Organizer and Leader, Con- 
tinued 100 

VIII. "The Home Protection" Address 118 

IX. The Defender of Her Faith . . 134 
X. Founder of the World's Woman's 

Christian Temperance Union 152 

XI. A Great Mother 170 

XII. In the Mother Country . . . 187 

XIII. British Institutions and Organ- 

izations 210 

XIV. Answering Armenia's Cry . . 230 
XV. Old Haunts and Homes Revisited 244 

XVI. Translation 263 

V 



VI 



CONTENTS 



XVII. Memorial Services .... 
XVIII. In Memory of a Great Life 

Presentation of Statue to United 
States Congress — Addresses of Sena- 
ators and Representatives — Statue 
Poem. 

Tributes by Noted Men: Miss 
Willard as a University Woman and 
Educator — Miss Willard's Public 
Life — Miss Willard as a Woman and 
a Friend — Miss Willard as an Ora- 
tor — Frances Willard's Mission and 
Message — A Prophetess of Self -Re- 
nunciation — Transfigured. 



277 
295 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE / 

Frontispiece 

Birthplace, Churchville, New York . 



4 v/ 
Forest Home 

Frances and Mary Willard .... 8 1/ 

Chapel, Northwestern University . 28 >/ 

"My Four" 40 V 

Portrait at Twenty-one Years ... 49 ^ 

Preceptress, Lima Seminary .... 54 ^ 

Dean of Woman's College, Northwestern 

University 57 ^ 

Willard Hall, Northwestern University 65^ 

Rest Cottage 83 ^ 

President National Woman's Christian 

Temperance Union 100 ^ 

The Den, Rest Cottage 116 ^ 

Founder World's Woman's Christian 

Temperance Union 152 ^ 

Statue 295 ^ 



INTRODUCTION 

LADY HENRY SOMERSET 

Frances E. Willard is the greatest woman 
philanthropist of our generation. I do not hesitate 
at the use of this word "greatest." I am persuaded 
that when the annals of the nineteenth century are 
written and the record of the modern movement 
that has metamorphosed the position of woman 
comes to be told, her name will stand pre-eminent 
as the one who saw with a keen prophetic eye ahead 
of her time, who realized the dangers, who steered 
clear of the rocks and shoals that beset any great 
change, and who furnished the women, not only of 
a great continent but the world over, with a just 
realization of their rightful position, by her safe- 
guarding gospel: "Womanliness first — afterward, 
what you will." 

The temperance cause was the open door through 
which she entered into her service for the world. 
The defense of woman, her uplift, her education for 
the widening way, was the task she set herself to 
accomplish. But to no special cause did Frances 
Willard belong; her life was the property of hu- 
manity, and I believe that there was not a single 



x INTRODUCTION 

cry that could rise from the world, not a single 
wrong that could be redressed, not a "wail of 
weakness" of any kind that did not find an im- 
mediate echo in her heart, that did not call her to 
rise and go forth in that chivalric strength and gen- 
tleness which, in the battle of life, have clad her as 
with a holy panoply. 

For years her name has been a household word 
among all those who work for the uplift of humanity 
in England; and I well remember the day when I 
first received a letter of encouragement and cheer 
from her, words so sisterly and sympathetic that it 
seemed as though a new light had shined in the 
darkness and difficulty of our temperance reform. 
In that letter she sent me a little knot of white 
ribbon, and all these years that little bow has 
been pinned into my Bible. It came as a promise 
of the most beautiful friendship that ever blessed 
any life. 

Thinking of her as I saw her in the fulness of her 
power at the great Boston Convention, in 1891, 
it seems to me that no other will ever fill the place 
she has left vacant, for to no other could be given 
that rare combination of power and perfect gentle- 
ness, of playful humor and tender pathos, that 
strange mixture of reserve with an almost childlike 
confidence, and, above all, that sublime spirituality 
that always made one feel how near she was to the 



INTRODUCTION xi 

invisible, how lightly the mantle of the material lay 
upon her. 

She came to us in England in the summer of 1892, 
bowed with grief at the loss of the mother who had 
been the strong staff of her life, who had upheld her 
through her work, cheered her in her discourage- 
ments, pointed her onward in her days of weariness. 
I think I have never known a human soul feel sor- 
row so acutely as did this daughter, when for a while 
a cloud hid that mother from her sight. It was like 
the grieving of a little child that holds out its hands 
in the dark and feels in vain for the accustomed 
clasp that sent it happily to sleep. She was wel- 
comed in this country as I suppose no other philan- 
thropist has been welcomed in our time. The vast 
meeting that was organized to greet her at Exeter 
Hall was the most representative that has ever 
assembled in that historic building; and certainly 
no more varied gathering of philanthropists could 
be brought together with one object than met there 
that day. On the platform sat members of Parlia- 
ment, dignitaries of our own church, and temper- 
ance leaders from the Roman Catholic Church, 
leaders of the Labor movement and of the Salvation 
Army, and delegations from the Methodist, Baptist, 
and Congregational Churches, and the Society of 
Friends. The chief Jewish rabbi sent a congratu- 
latory letter and signed the address of welcome, 



xii INTRODUCTION 

which was also signed by hundreds of local branches 
of the British Women's Temperance Association. 

"What went ye out for to see?" was the question 
that one asked one's self as that frail form stood in 
the midst of the vast assembly. A woman called of 
God; a woman who preached Christ in politics, 
Christ in the home, the equality of and the same 
standard of purity for men and women, the libera- 
tion of the oppressed, the destruction of legalized 
wrong, the upbuilding of all that was great in home, 
in government, and in the nation. And she who 
had gone forth without money and without influence, 
but with an untarnished name, a clear brain, an 
indomitable will, and a God-given inspiration had 
in her twenty years of work gathered round her, not 
only the sympathies of her own land, but the admira- 
tion and good-will of the whole English-speaking 
race. The time she spent in England was a tri- 
umphal procession, and greetings awaited her in 
every city of importance throughout the whole of 
Great Britain and Ireland. The Synod Hall in 
Edinburgh, the historic temperance town of Preston, 
Dublin and Glasgow, vast assemblies in the Free 
Trade Hall in Manchester, packed audiences in 
Liverpool and Birmingham — all vied to do her 
honor; and wherever she went, her clear, incisive 
thought, the pathos and |>ower of her words, and, 
perhaps most of all, the sweet, gentle woman, won the 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

heart as well as the intellect of all who met to greet 
her and assembled to hear her. There was no trait 
in Miss Willard's character that was more prom- 
inent than her generous power of help. If an idea 
came to her, she had no thought but to share it with 
her fellow- workers. Anything that she had said 
was common property, anything that she could write 
might bear another's signature; to help, to help — 
this was her only thought; for she was inspired by 
a love which "seeketh not her own," but that gave 
of the treasure that had been poured into her life as 
freely as the sunshine ripens and blesses the world. 

I saw a saint — how canst thou tell that he 

Thou sawest was a saint? 
I saw one like to Christ so luminously 
By patient deeds of love, his mortal taint 
Seemed made his groundwork for humility. 

And when he marked me downcast utterly, 

Where foul I sat and faint, 
Then more than ever Christ-like kindled he; 
And welcomed me as I had been a saint, 
Tenderly stooping low to comfort me. 

Christ bade him, "Do thou likewise." Wherefore he 

Waxed zealous to acquaint 
His soul with sin and sorrow, if so be 
He might retrieve some latent saint : 
"Lo, I, with the child God hath given to me!" 

— Christina Rossetti. 



Only the golden rule of Christ can bring the 
golden age of man. ^^ . 



FRANCES E. WILLARD 

CHAPTER I 
ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD 

No great soul appears suddenly. Mental and 
moral capital are investments made for us by our 
forefathers. Oliver Wendell Holmes would have us 
think that the child's value to society is determined # 
a century before its birth, and such souls as Harriet 
Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and James 
Russell Lowell go far to prove his theory. Cer- 
tainly, the measure of greatness in a man or a woman 
is often decided by the intellectual and ethical 
streams flowing down from the ancestral hills into 
the new human soul. 

Yet in every great soul remains something that 
must be referred to God only. The secret of great- 
ness may be in part ancestral, but the gift is divine, 
the source of genius veiled in clouds and thick dark- 
ness forever eluding the seeker. In the last analysis 
we may only say that it is God who, for some ap- 
pointed mission, baptizes a soul with a power not 
its own; it is He who girds the man or the woman 
for the life task. 

1 



2 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

Miss Willard's father, Josiah Flint Willard, born 
in Wheelock, Vermont, and her mother, Mary 
Thompson Hill Willard, a native of Danville in the 
same state, fell heir to all the best qualities of the 
rich soil of New England, and they in turn be- 
queathed their united treasure to the daughter, 
whom they trained for her career as teacher, author, 
orator, philanthropist, and social reformer. 

Major Simon Willard, of Horsmonden, Kent, the 
first Willard to settle in the New World in 1634, was 
one of the founders of Concord, Massachusetts — 
afterward famous as the home of Emerson, Haw- 
thorne, Thoreau, and the Alcotts — the literary center 
of New England. Major Willard was a Puritan 
who took for his intellectual motto, "Truth for 
authority, not authority for truth." The early 
history of Massachusetts is full of allusions to his 
many and varied services in an official capacity, all 
reflecting high honor upon his character as a man of 
integrity, ability, and energy. "He was early 
called into positions of public trust, disciplined by 
the teachings of toil, deprivation, and varied ex- 
perience, and had the confidence and affection of an 
enlightened community throughout all the emer- 
gencies of a new state." Among the immediate 
descendants of this rugged and righteous ancestor 
are two presidents of Harvard University, also Rev. 
Samuel Willard, pastor of the Old South Church, 



ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD 3 

Boston, who opposed the hanging of the witches, 
and Solomon Willard, of Quincy, Massachusetts, 
the architect of Bunker Hill Monument, who refused 
pay for his services, and of whom Edward Everett 
said, "His chief characteristic was that he wanted 
to do everything for everybody for nothing." Miss 
Willard's great-grandfather, Rev. Elijah Willard, 
was for forty years pastor of a church in Dublin, 
near Keene, New Hampshire, and he served as chap- 
lain throughout the Revolutionary War. 

Miss Willard's father was elegant in person, and 
charming in manner. He was devoutly religious, 
endowed with a fine mind, an inflexible will, and un- 
usual powers of thought and speech. His daughter 
Frances further described him as "thoroughly in- 
tellectual, an insatiable reader, and a man possess- 
ing exceedingly fine taste." 

Miss Willard's mother, Mary Thompson Hill, was 
of New England stock and one of a singularly gifted 
family. Her grandfather Hill was a man of self- 
sacrificing integrity, as is averred in this recorded 
incident: "When, early in his career, he had be- 
come security for a friend who failed, men of 
good conscience came to him, urging that a man's 
family was a 'preferred creditor' in all business 
relations, and that he should not give up all he had 
to satisfy another man's creditors. But he was a 
man of clean hands — swearing to his own hurt and 



4 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

changing not. He only answered, 'It is the nature 
of a bondsman when the principal fails to stand in 
the gap.' And he stood in the gap, losing all his 
fortune rather than fail to be true to the implied 
promise of his bond." 

In Mrs. Willard's maternal grandfather, Nathaniel 
Thompson, of Durham, New Hampshire, we find 
the moral courage that characterized our fearless 
reformer. He was once a guest at a dinner where 
everyone drank the health of the tyrant whom 
Americans were fighting, each saying as glasses were 
clinked, "King George's health, and it shall go 
round !" Then the young hero, Nathaniel, startled 
the disloyal Tories by crying out, "Washington's 
health, and it shall go round!" and was nothing 
daunted, though driven from the room and in 
danger of his life. Her father, John Hill, was a 
kind of moral Hercules, a man of great courage and 
decision, widely known for his democratic principles 
and his deep interest in all those agencies that were 
fitted to develop the intellectual and moral forces of 
the community, while his wife, gentle Polly Thomp- 
son, possessing a character described as "almost 
angelic," was equally well known for her zeal for 
school, college, and church. 

Scientists tell us that climate affects character; 
that children of ease and abundance in the tropics, 
without tools, without books, without home, church, 




BIRTHPLACE. CHURCH YILLE. NEW YORK 



X 



FOREST HOME 



ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD 5 

or school, are the children of lassitude and laziness; 
meanwhile civilization follows the belt of the snow- 
drift, and in the rigorous warfare with winter, 
adversity, poverty, struggle, man develops self- 
reliance, hardihood, courage — the true material 
for intellectual culture and moral wealth. And 
certain it is that the oak and the rock of the New 
England hills seem to have repeated themselves in 
the iron will and the unyielding courage of the Wil- 
lard family. The very name means " one who wills," 
and this doubtless explains the family motto, 
"Gaudet patientia duris" (Patience rejoices in hard- 
ships) . 

It was a rarely endowed home into which Frances 
Elizabeth Willard was born on September 28, 1839, 
in Churchville, New York, a home sheltered from 
adverse chance to soul or to body by the father's 
strength of heart and arm and will; with the mother- 
climate warm within, winning out and fostering all 
wholesome developments — a richly nurtured child- 
garden, where the sturdy small plants struck deep 
root and spread wide leafage to the air, catching 
every drop of pure knowledge and every beam of 
home-love falling within its rays. Here the "rosy- 
white flower of the child's consciousness unfolded its 
five-starred cup to the bending blue above." Baby 
Frances talked before she could walk, "speaking 
quite wisely at fourteen months," but not until she 



6 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

was two years of age did her little feet begin their 
world-wide pilgrimage in obedience to the dictates 
of that electric brain and humanity-loving heart. 

Seventy years ago the hegira from the East to the 
West was still in progress. The rough line of the 
pioneers, the sappers and miners of civilization, had 
finished their task, and made clear paths through 
the wilderness and the woods. Then everywhere, 
from cultured and thoughtful homes in the East, 
the exodus began. No longer was the going forth 
by individuals, man by man, each fighting for his 
own hand, but by families, friendly and allied. The 
future would bring to them new outward condi- 
tions, but they carried the means and appliances 
to alter them to their will. Indeed, they were in 
themselves, in aptitude and skill of heart, mind, and 
hand, the mature human harvest of all the fulness 
of the past — that human harvest which is at once 
the treasuring or garnering up of the old and the seed 
of the new. 

In this onward march it was fitting that the Wil- 
lards should have their place. Reared amid the 
loveliest surroundings, royal Americans in heart 
*and mind, members of the old stone church which 
bore the simple name, "The Church of God in 
Ogden," and which recognized no lines of doctrinal 
difference in worship and life, but united on the 
ground of obedient acknowledgment of the Lord and 



ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD 7 

His Word, it was no wonder that in the providence of 
God these two were sent out as chosen seed for the 
new lands of the West. 

Their first journey overland from Church ville, 
New York, terminated at Oberlin, Ohio, where 
these discerning parents, who had both been suc- 
cessful teachers in the Empire State, invested five 
years of student life at the college. Here the 
beloved sister Mary was born, and here the older 
children, Oliver and Frances, received in awe and 
love their early impress of the ideas of religion and 
scholarship. The ardent desire for learning which 
had hitherto led the parents on as by a pillar of 
fire, changed to the threatening cloud of the father's 
failing health, which imperatively demanded the 
free air of the open West and the simplest out-door 
life; so in the spring of 1846 we find them again 
"stepping westward." Three of the quaint, roomy, 
white-hooded prairie schooners, which were then the 
common feature of Western highways, carried the 
intrepid family. The father led the way. The 
little son, ambitious of manhood, with gravely 
assumed responsibility guided the strong and gentle 
horses which pulled the second vehicle over the 
smooth prairie miles or the jolting corduroy 
lengths that bridged inconvenient morasses. The 
mother, with her baby girls perched safely beside 
her, in the fine seat father's old-fashioned desk 



8 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

made when it was properly pillowed, brought up 
the rear. 

They passed through Chicago, then chiefly notable 
as the possibility of a future city, and, continuing 
their three weeks' journey, save the Sunday "rests," 
which were strictly observed, came at length to the 
banks of the beautiful Rock River, near Janesville, 
Wisconsin, about fourteen miles from Beloit. 
Here they stopped. To the west was the winding 
river, serene and broad, with its spacious outlook to 
the setting sun; to the east, the illimitable prairie, 
to be for ages green with the springing wheat, yellow 
with the ripening grain, and every morning glorified 
in all its level miles by the streaming light and 
abundant promise of the sun at its rising. To right 
and left the wooded hills, like softly sheltering arms, 
gathered protectingly around. What more perfect 
place for a new home-nest ! 

"Forest Home," a picturesque cottage, with 
rambling roof, gables, dormer-windows, little 
porches, crannies, and out-of-the-way nooks, was 
soon built. "The bluffs, so characteristic of Wiscon- 
sin, rose about it on the right and the left. Groves 
of oak and hickory were on either hand; a miniature 
forest of evergreens almost concealed the cottage 
from the view of passers-by; the Virginia creeper 
twined at will around the pillars of the piazza and 
over the parlor windows, while its rival, the Michigan 




FRANCES AND MARY WILLARD 
[From a daguerreotype made in 1847. Shown in the original locket frame) 



ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD 9 

rose, clambered over the trellis and the balustrade to 
the roof. The air was laden with the perfume of 
flowers. Through the thick and luxuriant growth 
of shrubbery were paths which strayed off aimlessly, 
tempting the feet down their mysterious aisles." 
Here for twelve happy years the Willard children 
lived an idyllic life of love and labor, play and study, 
thought and prayer. 

Happy the mother who could say of her child, 
"She was affectionate, confiding, intuitive, pre- 
cocious, original. She early manifested an exceed- 
ing fondness for books. She believed in herself and 
in her teachers. Her bias toward certain studies 
and pursuits was very marked. Even in the privacy 
of her own room she was often in an ecstasy of aspi- 
ration. She strongly repelled occupations not to her 
taste, but was eager to grapple with principles, 
philosophies, and philanthropies, and was unweary- 
ingly industrious along her favorite lines." 

Happy the daughter who could say of her mother, 
"My mother held that nature's standard ought to 
be restored, and that the measure of each human 
being's endowment was the only reasonable measure 
of that human being's sphere. She had small 
patience with artificial diagrams placed before wom- 
en by the dictates of society in which the bound- 
aries of their especial 'sphere' were marked out for 
them, and one of her favorite phrases was, 'Let a 



10 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

girl grow as a tree grows — according to its own 
sweet will.' She looked at the mysteries of human 
progress from the angle of vision made by the eyes 
of both the man and the woman, and foresaw that 
the mingling of justice and mercy in the great 
decisions that affected society would give deliverance 
from political corruption and governmental one- 
sidedness." 

Before the days when Froebel's name became 
familiar to the tongue, this mother, as good mothers 
always have done, lived with her children. Their 
visitors at first were chiefly chipmunks and birds. 
"I had many ambitions," she said, "but I disap- 
peared from the world that I might reappear at 
some future day in my children." They made 
believe the country was a city; they organized a 
club with as many rules as a parliamentary manual, 
and printed a newspaper of which Frances was the 
editor, to say nothing of "breaking the calf" to 
circus antics. In all this childish activity the 
mother was aider and abettor, and we have never 
learned that she discouraged that marvelous novel 
of adventure, four hundred pages long, written by 
the aspiring Frances as she sat in the top of her 
favorite old oak, where she needlessly guarded 
herself from all intruders by fastening to the tree 
a board with these words printed upon it in large 
letters : 



ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD 11 



THE EAGLE S NEST BEWARE ! 



While the mother certainly fostered every char- 
acteristic impulse of the more daring, firmer-handed 
Frances, she did not fail to note, encourage, and assist 
the growth of Mary's quieter genius, and reward its 
achievements also with love and approbation. "I 
do not know which of us she loved the more. I do 
not think the question ever occurred to us. Each 
had her own heaven in our mother's heart," said 
Frances, years afterward, when the name of Mary 
and the life motto she gave to Frances with her 
last breath, "Tell everybody to be good," had 
been carved for many a year on the headstone at 
Rose Hill. "We were content, and oh, how we 
loved one another!" 

Amid all the fun and frolic and endless experi- 
ment in activity, there was much solid and systema- 
tic study. Before the time when the little brown 
schoolhouse was built in the woods, the father 
arranged a study room in the house, with desks and 
benches made by his own hands. The mother 
gathered in some neighbors' children, themselves 
without other advantages, to be all together with 
her own brood, under her own eyes. A bright, 
charming, accomplished young woman, Miss Anna 
Burdick, just from the East and Eastern schools, 



12 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

came daily, and was a loved and delightful teacher. 
The Institute for the Blind, located not far away, 
gave the children opportunities for musical 
training, while they themselves, in the establish- 
ment of various outdoor clubs, the "Rustic" and 
others, continued to study afield what they had 
learned in books of botany and natural history; and 
the exercises of the "Studio," with the consequent 
sketching trips, carried a little way further the 
art instruction Miss Burdick began. In art, 
however, Mary was easily first. Frances liked 
better to dream, philosophize, and plan in the pres- 
ence of a beautiful scene than to patiently draw 
it. Her part consisted chiefly in stating the "ob- 
jects," arranging the routes, and drafting the rules. 
These rules were very practical: "If one member 
goes off alone, he shall let Margaret Ryan know of 
it, so the folks needn't be scared." "There shall 
always be something good to eat." "We, the mem- 
bers of this club, hereby choose Fred as our dog, 
although once in a while we may take Carlo. Carlo 
can go when he has sense enough." This club was 
doubtless the one having for its object "to tell what 
great things we have done ourselves, or what Oliver 
and Loren or the Hodge boys have, or Daniel Boone, 
or anybody else. " 

Great frolics were enjoyed in Forest Home, and 
it is no reflection on the "Peace" principles dominat- 



ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD 13 

ing her later life that here Frances was the ringleader 
in the exciting "Indian fights" when mother and 
girls tried to "hold the fort" against the invading 
enemy — two boys and a dog! Then it was that 
Frances as Commanding-General, issued her famous 
order to "have ready a piece of sparerib to entice 
the dog away from those two dreadful Indians!" 
and so weaken the forces to be encountered — a 
piece of strategy she remembered in after days as 
possibly applicable to politics. 

Forest Home always had its "Fourth of July," 
celebrated with intense enthusiasm. "Thanksgiving 
was passed lightly over in that new country where 
there were no absent members of the family to come 
home; Christmas found stockings hanging up, with 
but little in them; New Year hardly counted at 
all; birthdays cut no great figure, even Washing- 
ton's going for almost nothing, but the Fourth 
of July ! — that came in, went on, and passed out 
in a blaze of patriotic glory. This does not mean 
fireworks, though, and a big noise, for never a 
cracker or a torpedo snapped off its Yankee 
Doodle 'sentiments' on the old farm in all the 
years. The children had no money to spend, but 
if they had had, it would not have been allowed to 
pass away in smoke. So much had their mother 
talked to them about America that their native land 
was to them a cherishing mother, like their own in 



14 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

gentleness and strength, only having so many more 
children, grateful and glad, under her thoughtful 
care. They loved to give her praises, and half be- 
lieved that some time, when they grew big enough 
and got out into the wide, wide world, they should 
find her and kneel to offer her their loving service 
and to ask her blessing." Nothing could be more 
interesting than Miss Willard's graphic description 
of those glorious "Fourths," prophetic of the tem- 
perance reform, the independence of women, and 
the bringing of the home spirit into all the world's 
affairs; "for when temperance triumphs," she was 
wont to say, "there will be no drinking on the 
Fourth; when women march in the procession there 
will be no powder; when father, mother, and the 
children have equal part in the great celebration it 
will be very peaceable and more an affair of the heart 
than of the lungs." 

We are told on the best authority that the only 
piece of sewing Frances Willard ever attempted with- 
out complaint was when she helped make a flag for 
the patriotic procession the children had planned 
for one of these great days. To be sure, this flag 
was only an old pillow case with red calico stripes 
sewed on and gilt paper stars pinned in the corner, 
and they lifted it up on a broomstick (again a bit 
of prophecy, mayhap), but it was their country's 
flag, and Oliver, who marched proudly at the head 



ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD 15 

of the procession, flag in hand, was gallant enough 
to say to Frances when half the distance agreed 
upon had been traversed, "Wouldn't you like to 
carry the flag half the time?" Frances tells us she 
was not at all backward about coming forward in 
that kind of business, and that her father and mother 
laughed heartily when she changed the order of ex- 
ercises by saying, "That * Yankee Doodle* we were 
playing does not go very well; let us try * Forever 
Float'!" so they all joined in singing as she held 
the flag : 

"Forever float that standard sheet 

Where breathes the foe but falls before us, 
With freedom's soil beneath our feet, 
And freedom's banner streaming o'er us." 

Frances slyly whispered to her sister Mary, "That's 
a clear case of We, Us and Company; why can't it 
always stay so?" 

Mary's neatly written journal gives a glimpse of 
those halcyon days : 

Frank said we might as well have a ship, if we did 
live on shore; so we took a hencoop pointed at the 
top, put a big plank across it and stood up, one at 
each end, with an old rake handle apiece to steer 
with; up and down we went, slow when it was a calm 
sea and fast when there was a storm, until the old 
hen clucked and the chickens all ran in, and we had 
a lively time. Frank was captain and I was mate. 
We made out charts of the sea and rules about how 



16 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

to navigate when it was good weather, and how when 
it was bad. We put up a sail made of an old sheet 
and had great fun, until I fell off and hurt me. 

To-day Frank gave me half her dog Frisk, that 
she bought lately, and for her pay I made a promise 
which mother witnessed and here it is : 

"I, Mary Willard, promise never to touch any- 
thing lying or being upon Frank Willard 's writing 
desk which father gave her. I promise never to 
ask, either by speaking, writing or singing, or in any 
other way, any person or body to take off or put on 
anything on said stand and desk without special 
permission from said F. W. I promise never to 
touch anything which may be in something upon 
her stand and desk; I promise never to put anything 
on it or in anything on it; I promise if I am writing 
or doing anything else at her desk to go away the 
minute she tells me. If I break this promise I will 
let the said F. W. come into my room and go to my 
trunk or go into any place where I keep my things 
and take anything of mine she likes. All this I 
promise, unless entirely different arrangements are 
made. These things I promise upon my most 
sacred honor." 

From "Frank's" journal of the same period we 
quote her first poem, composed in her tenth year, 
which proves afresh that the thoughts of youth 
"are long, long thoughts": 

"Am I almost of age, am I almost of age? 
Said a poor little girl, as she glanced from her cage. 
How long will it be 
Before I shall be free 



ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD 17 

And not fear friend or foe? 
If I somewhere could go 
And I some folks could know, 
I'd not want to ' be of age ' 
But remain in my cage." 

In the last winter of her free life we find her still 

singing of "captivity" in a dainty bit of verse 

addressed to a snowbird: 

****** 

"Dear little bird with glancing wing, 
Did you but know I long to fly, 
Perhaps you'd sit quite near and sing 
To me in my captivity. 
"Dear human heart, be not afraid; 

Thy need of food, thy dream of flight, 
He knows, by whom the worlds were made — 
To speed thee on is His delight." 

They anticipated the societies of our day for the 
protection of dumb animals — these "out-doorsy" 
little people, as the same journal tells us: 

One day when we girls were having our good times 
down by the river the three Hodge boys came along 
hunting for birds' nests. "But you mustn't carry 
any away," said Mary, greatly stirred. "You may 
climb the trees and look, if you want to see the eggs 
or little ones, but you can't hurt a birdie, big or 
little, in our pasture. " The boys said their mother 
told them the same thing and they only wanted to 
look. So Mary and I showed them under the leafy 
covert some of the brown thrushes' housekeeping, 
and the robins', too, and told them they were nice, 
kind boys. 



18 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

Brotherhood and sisterhood meant much in the 
Willard household. The liveliest stories are told 
about the comradeship of Frances and Oliver. They 
were up to no end of jolly times together. If he 
liked better to play "Fort" and she to play "City," 
that was no reason they should be divided in their 
play. She played "Fort" with him, entering into 
his imagination of it with cordiality and swing, and 
played it gloriously. He played "City" with her, 
assisting her "in consideration of the resources of 
the corporation." Brother and sister thus mutually 
annexed each other's land, and became richer by 
the resources in liking and faculty of both. 

"A boy whose sister knows everything he does 
will be far more modest, genial, and pleasant to have 
about," Frances once said; then, smiling quietly, 
she added, "and it will be a great improvement to 
the sister also." Doubtless she regarded this com- 
merce between the lands of brother and sister, of 
man and woman; this association, not of bodily 
presence only, such as takes place around every 
breakfast table, but a true association of minds; 
this unselfish and unstinted entrance of one nature 
into the feeling, thought, and activity of another 
for a little space, like a journey into a neighboring 
country, from which a wise traveler comes back 
laden with riches for his own — all this doubtless 
she regarded soberly as a "wider education" for 



ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD 19 

women. It was certainly one of the powerful and 
enlarging influences which made Frances Willard a 
great woman. It is a fascinating study to see how 
in that early day many after-greatnesses put forth 
their first leaves. She was a born organizer, which 
only means she was magnificently a woman, for is 
not woman the born organizer of creation? She 
early discovered that "usefulness of association," 
and in numerous preambles drawn up when she could 
scarcely write "straight" she called attention to it. 
In the self-derived charter of "Fort City" we find 
announced: "We will have no saloons or billiard 
halls, and then we will not need any jails" — a 
somewhat rash and girlish generalization, for the 
devil can sow tares in human nature, even though 
whisky-soaked ground should fail him. 

Frances learned to read from "The Slave's 
Friend," thus early imbibing from her abolition 
parents the sentiments that swept through her soul 
in the succeeding years, making her ever the friend 
of the negro race, and giving birth to a phrase in one 
of her prophetic mottoes: "No sect in religion, no 
sex in citizenship, no sectionalism in politics." 

The children early signed the total abstinence 
pledge inscribed in the old family Bible, where the 
names of the father and the mother preceded the 
childish autographs. This was the pledge, and we 
hope that many a child-reader of this old-fashioned 



20 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

iron-clad promise will here and now affix his name to 
the same noble resolution: 

"A pledge we make, no wine to take, 
Nor brandy red that turns the head, 
Nor fiery rum that ruins home, 
Nor whisky hot that makes the sot, 
Nor brewers' beer, for that we fear. 
And cider, too, will never do; 
To quench our thirst we'll always bring 
Cold water from the well or spring. 
So here we pledge perpetual hate 
To all that can intoxicate." 

Fifty years after Miss Willard had signed this 
pledge, she composed one especially for her boy 
friends, which is here transcribed in sacred memory 
of their elder sister 's love and prayerful expectation 
for the boys and girls of this and future generations : 

Pledge for Boys 
"I pledge my brain God's thoughts to think, 
My lips no fire or foam to drink 
From alcoholic cup, 

Nor link with my pure breath tobacco's taint. 
For have I not a right to be 
As wholesome, pure, and free as she 
Who through the years, so glad and free, 
Moves gently onward to meet me? 
A knight of the new chivalry 
For Christ and Temperance I would be." 

The home Frances Willard was to find in millions 
of hearts was wistfully foreshadowed when she stood 
in the doorway of the old barn at Forest Home "that 
lonesome day in early spring." She tells us it was 



ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD 21 

gray with fog and moist with rain. It was Sunday, 
there was no church to attend, and the time stretched 
out before her long and desolate. "She cried out 
in querulous tones to the two who shared her every 
thought, 'I wonder if we shall ever know anything, 
see anybody, or go anywhere?' 'Why do you wish 
to go away? 5 asked sweet little Mary, with her 
reassuring smile. 'Oh, we must learn — must grow, 
and must achieve; it is such a big world that if we 
don't begin at it we shall never catch up with the 
rest." ! Dear little eagles in their "eagle's nest!" 
They were growing their wings for future flights all 
through those lovely years. 

"It was a beautiful childhood," Miss Willard said, 
years later. "I do not know how it could have been 
more beautiful, or how there could have been a truer 
beginning of many things. To me, it has often 
seemed as if those earlier years were ' seed to all my 
after good.' " Then she repeated softly to herself: 

"'Long years have left their writing on my brow, 
But yet the freshness and the dew-fed beam 
Of those young mornings are about me now.' 

" I thank Thee, O bountiful God, that I have so 
much of happiness, of quiet enjoyment, to remember. 
I thank Thee that I have not forgotten, cannot forget. 
I thank Thee that wherever I may dwell, no place 
can be so dear, so completely embalmed in my 
heart, so truly the best beloved of all to me as 
'Forest Home'." 



CHAPTER II 
STUDENT LIFE 

When Frances Willard was fourteen, her father 
and a neighbor bestirred themselves for their chil- 
dren's sake, and the little brown schoolhouse was 
built in the wood, about a mile away. It was the 
simplest of district schoolhouses, plain and inviting, 
Frances says, "a bit of a building under the trees 
on the river bank. It looked like a natural growth, 
a sort of big ground-nut. The pine desks were 
ranged around the wall, the boys on one side, the 
girls on the other, and a real live graduate from Yale 
was teacher.' ' "There will be lots of rules," said 
Oliver to his sisters, the evening before their first 
real school day opened. "Never mind," responded 
Frances. "It will be a pleasant change to have some 
rules and live up to them." 

In this school the sisters had ten months of bright, 
inspiring instruction keyed to high ideals for heart 
and head. We can hear the ardent child Frances 
leading in rich contralto tones the favorite song with 
which they made "the rafters ring": 

"Now to heaven our prayer ascending, 
God speed the right! 
In a noble cause contending, 
God speed the right!" 

22 



STUDENT LIFE 23 

With these school days came an enlarged social 
outlook for the young recluses whose home play- 
mates heretofore had scarcely been other than broth- 
er and sister, father and mother. In addition to 
some odd volumes of travel and biography, the books 
they had thus far studied were the Bible, "Pilgrim's 
Progress," and Shakespeare. Shakespeare was a 
"most wise instructor," and certain it is that before 
she was fifteen the eager girl had read, reread, and 
commented upon all his plays. No modern "pre- 
liminaries" could have given her such an equipment 
for entering school. 

But now the brother at college began to collect 
his library. Great was the revelry when he brought 
home the Bohn translation of the classics — Plato, 
Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, "Don Quixote," which 
the young folks read aloud; the "Imitation of 
Christ," which grew dear to Frances' heart, and 
many another treasure. The vacations became, in 
their new occupation with books, scarcely less stimu- 
lating intellectually than were the school days. 

In her fifteenth year Frances made a trip to the 
old homestead in the East, and was much impressed 
by her father's witty old mother and her grand- 
father Hill, a man powerful in religious life and 
greatly gifted in prayer. On her return, both the 
sisters began to attend a select school in Janesville, 
and here Frances' incipient skill as a journalist was 



24 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

called forth in the remarkable way in which she 
edited the school paper. 

A great opportunity was presented in a summer 
visit in the home of Southern friends who had driven 
from Georgia to Wisconsin in their own carriage for 
the sake of pleasure and health. Owners and teach- 
ers of a ladies' school at home, elegant and cultured 
people, it was the greatest event thus far in the lives 
of these forest nymphs to go six miles from home to 
spend several weeks studying with these friends in 
their rural retreat, and for the first time to sleep out 
from under the old home roof. "The all-overish feel- 
ing of loneliness' ' was conquered by the thought of 
how much they would know when the separation 
was over, and they were soon devoted to their gifted 
teachers. Here Frances made her first acquaintance 
with the Bronte novels — at least half through 
" Villette." Her father, coming upon her with it in 
her hands, shut the book and briefly remarked to 
her instructor, "Never let my daughter see that 
book again, if you please, madam." 

The daughter religiously respected her father's 
prohibition regarding the book, and, as years passed, 
learned how much she owed to "the firm hand that 
held her impetuous nature from a too early knowl- 
edge of the unreal world of romance." 

At Forest Home, Frances won her first spurs as a 
writer. The Prairie Farmer having offered a prize 



STUDENT LIFE 25 

for the best essay on the embellishment of a country- 
home, Mrs. Willard, who forbade her children no 
harmless thing along the line of their impulses, en- 
couraged her daughter to compete; her father con- 
tributed a suggestion about the planting of ever- 
greens, and the fateful manuscript was dispatched. 
Great was the glee when in return for the effort came 
a beautiful cup and a note of congratulation. 

In 1857, Frances and Mary were students in the 
Milwaukee Female College, where their aunt, Miss 
Sarah Hill (Mrs. Willard's youngest sister), was 
Professor of History. Frances, then seventeen, 
found in this aunt her intellectual guide. The moral 
atmosphere of the school was excellent; there was 
the finest honor among the girls ; they were expected, 
and expected themselves, to be ladies, careful schol- 
ars and obedient to the rules. Here the young girl 
found a charming circle of friends, true companions, 
with whom she stood in the heartiest, healthiest, 
most helpful relation. Here she found also the 
beautiful "Marion," bright particular star of those 
years, whom she so loved that she writes : " I never 
rested until, like her, I also heard 'ten — ten,' 
meaning perfect in conduct and scholarship, read 
out after my name each week." As Macdonald says, 
"Love loves to wear the livery of the beloved." 
On "Examination Day" Frances read an essay on 
"Originality of Thought and Action," winning the 



26 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

applause of the audience, including father and 
mother, the exercises receiving an additional flavor 
for this young author when a charming poem of 
hers, almost her first effort in that line, was read by 
a young girl friend. And writes truthful Frances, 
"I was downright sorry to go home." 

The speedy popularity of the Willard girls with 
both teachers and pupils rested upon no less sound a 
basis than what they were in themselves and what 
they could do. Certainly none of it depended upon 
the possession of what people called "means." Ab- 
solutely all the spending money they had for three 
months was the fifty cents which Irish Mike, the 
farm hand, sent the two girls. After careful consul- 
tation, Frances invested hers in a ticket to the me- 
nagerie, a blank book to write essays in, and pepper- 
mint candy, which list of expenditures makes us 
love her for the unspoiled humanness of it. It was 
this same Irish Mike who, years after, when Miss 
Willard was struggling in the political prohibition 
arena, sent word: 

"That lady and her folks were good to me when 
I was a green boy from the old country, and now the 
lady hasn't a vote to bless herself with; but me and 
my boys will put in three for her. And I thought I 
would write and tell you. Respect. Mike Carey." 

The little blank book lies on the table before me. 
It bears a dashing autograph on the first page, and 



STUDENT LIFE 27 

above it, written by that rememberful hand many 
years later, is this explanatory note: "Mike Carey 
sent Mary and me fifty cents between us when we 
were pupils at Milwaukee, and out of mine this book 
was bought — all the money of that sort we had in 
the three months' term." 

Frances celebrated the arrival of her eighteenth 
birthday by writing the following: 

I am eighteen. 

I have been obedient. 
Not that the yoke was heavy to be borne, 
For lighter ne'er did parents fond 

Impose on child. 

It was a silver chain, 

But the bright adjective 
Takes not away the clanking sound! 

The clock has struck! 
I'm free! Come, joy profound! 
' I'm alone and free — 

Free to obey Jehovah only, 
Accountable but to the powers above! 

Then she took "Ivanhoe," seated herself on the 
porch, and began to read with calm satisfaction. 
Her father chanced up the steps. "What have you 
there?" "One of Scott's novels." "Have I not 
forbidden you to read any novels?" "You forget 
what day it is, Father." "What difference does the 
day make in the deed?" "A great deal. I am 
eighteen to-day, and I do not have to obey any laws 
but those of God hereafter. In my judgment, 



28 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

'Ivanhoe' is good to be read." The amazed father 
was for half an instant minded to take away the book 
by force. Then he laughed, called her mother, and 
the two contemplated this woman-child of theirs. 
At length he said, seriously: "She is evidently a 
chip of the Puritan block. That was an old-fash- 
ioned Protestant declaration of independence. Well, 
we will try to learn God's laws and obey them to- 
gether, my child." 

The two sisters had been looking forward to fur- 
ther study in Milwaukee, but their Methodist father 
desired a more strictly sectarian school for his chil- 
dren, and selected the Northwestern Female College 
at Evanston, Illinois, where, at the beginning of the 
spring term in 1858, when Frances was in her nine- 
teenth year, they entered as pupils. At Evanston, 
as at Milwaukee, "Frank" (as she was always called) 
was soon an acknowledged leader in scholarship and 
school activities. But at Evanston the girls were 
smiled at for the first time because of their simple 
dress ; this gave occasion to the last overt manifesta- 
tion of Frank's fighting powers in an incident which 
still lives in Evanston tradition. Their father al- 
ways had the whim of giving his personal care to 
the purchase of his daughters' wardrobe, taking 
counsel only of his own taste. So he sent to each of 
the girls a red worsted hood for her winter wear. 
Now, a red worsted hood might be charming on the 




CHAPEL, NORTHWESTERN IWIVERSITY 



STUDENT LIFE 29 

head of Mary, but to Frances, with her Titian hair, 
it was far from becoming. She hated it with a 
"hatred and a half," she says, and the girls guyed 
her unmercifully about the plain homespun thing. 
One of them, a tall, handsome creature, guyed her 
once too often as she was putting it on. Frank 
turned on her, threw her down, crumpled her up 
under a desk, and walked off defiantly tying the 
strings of that despised hood. Hood or no hood, 
there was no discounting the position she soon ac- 
quired in school. She was a power, rejoicing in 
nothing so much as taking the initiative. A reckless 
spirit, full of adventure, does some one say? No, a 
great nature unfolding itself, finding and testing its 
own powers. A strong will, full both of audacity and 
control, yet with such a beautiful habit of confidence 
toward her mother that she says, "I could scarcely 
tell where her thought ended and mine began." 

In spite of the revelations of her all-producing 
journal during her student life, Frances Willard as 
a young woman must have possessed a rare and 
exquisite beauty. One who first met her at the 
Evanston College writes: "My interest was ex- 
cited by the golden-haired young woman, Frank 
Willard. I saw she was younger than any of the 
women about her, and she then looked far younger 
than she was. I was attracted by her apparent youth 
and by the vivid expression of her absorbed and at- 



30 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

tentive face." Speaking forty years later, this friend 
says of her: "The same vivid, indescribable light 
was in her face, grown more delicate and illusive; 
it was as if all the years had subtly refined and en- 
riched that precious and fragrant substance, the oil 
of the life-lamp.' * 

Sundry notes in Miss Willard's journal during her 
college days are self -revealing. "Dr. Foster closed 
the Bible, after his discourse at the University chapel 
yesterday, with these words: * Brothers, with most 
men life is a failure.' The words impressed me deep- 
ly; there is sorrow in the thought, tears and agony 
are wrapped up in it. O Thou who rules t above, 
help me that my life may be valuable, that some 
human being shall yet thank Thee that I have lived 
and toiled! . . . ." Of the hero of a book she 
remarks: "He is a noble character, but he weeps too 
much, and I do not like his ideas about a wife obey- 
ing her husband — that I scout wherever I see it." 
In those days, she often had almost a cramp of self- 
consciousness in company at all strange to her, or 
under unaccustomed conditions, and in her journal 
she likens herself to Charles Lamb, who outside his 
immediate circle was not himself, neither natural 
nor at ease. "Perhaps," she says, "that is why I 
like books so much; they never frighten me. How- 
ever," she continues, addressing herself, "as you 
have begun to think much on this subject, probably 



STUDENT LIFE 31 

by and by your manner will assume of itself that 
half-cordial, half-dignified character that accords 
best with your nature." 

Her ambitions grew definite: "I thought that 
next to a wish I had to be a saint some day, I really 
would like to be a politician." 

"Professor detained me after devotions this 
morning, and with his most 'engaging* smile made 
this announcement: 'By vote of your teachers you 
are appointed valedictorian.' I was glad, of course; 
'tis like human nature. To others it will seem a 
small thing; it is not so to me." 



"I am more interested in the 'Memoirs of Marga- 
ret Fuller Ossoli' than in any other book I have read 
for years. Here we see what a woman achieved for 
herself. Not so much fame or honor, these are of 
minor importance, but a whole character, a culti- 
vated intellect, right judgment, self-knowledge, self- 
happiness. If she, why not we, by steady toil?" 



"Everything humbles me, but two things in the 
highest degree. One is to stand in a large library, 
the other to study astronomy. In both cases I not 
only see how much there is to be known, how insig- 
nificant my knowledge is, but I see how atomic I am, 
compared with other human beings. Astronomers 



32 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

* think God's thoughts after him.' Alas, I can 
hardly think their thoughts after them, when all is 
clearly represented!" 

Mrs. Mary Bannister Willard, her closest heart- 
friend among college mates and later her beloved 
sister-in-law, paints this charming picture of Miss 
Willard's wit and wisdom during her schoolgirl days : 

None of the pupils who attended the Northwestern 
Female College in the spring term of 1858 will fail 
to recall the impressions made by two young girls 
from Wisconsin on their entrance upon this new 
school life. Mary, with her sweet, delicate face, 
winning, almost confidential manner, and earnest, 
honest purpose, conquered the hearts of teachers 
and pupils at once. Schoolgirls are a conservative 
body, reserving favorable judgment till beauty, 
kindliness, or fine scholarship compels their admira- 
tion. Frances was at first thought proud, haughty, 
independent — all cardinal sins in schoolgirl codes. 
The shyness or timidity which she concealed only too 
successfully under a mask of indifference gave the 
impression that she really wished to stand aloof from 
her mates. When it came to recitations, however, 
all shyness and apparent indifference melted away. 
The enthusiasm for knowledge and excellence shone 
from the young girl's face on all these occasions. 
After "class" her schoolmates gathered in groups in 
corridor and chapel, and discussed her perforce 
favorably. "My! can't she recite? Look out for 
your laurels now, Kate!" "The new girl beats us 
all," — these were the ejaculations that testified 



STUDENT LIFE 33 

of honest schoolgirl opinion, and prophesied her 
speedy and sure success. In a few weeks she was 
editor of the college paper, and leader of all the in- 
tellectual forces among the students. She was in no 
sense, however, an intellectual "prig." None of us 
was more given over to a safe kind of fun and frolic; 
she was an inventor of sport, and her ingenuity 
devised many an amusement which was not all 
amusement, but which involved considerable ex- 
ercise of wit and intelligence — and our beloved 
"Professor" (William P. Jones) soon found that he 
could always rely upon her influence in the school 
to counteract the tendency to silly escapades and 
moonlight walks with the "University boys." A 
young man would have been temerity itself who 
would have suggested such a thing to her. In fact, 
she came to be something of a "beau" herself — 
a certain dashing recklessness about her having as 
much fascination for the average schoolgirl as if she 
had been a senior in the University, instead of the 
carefully-dressed, neatly-gloved young lady who 
took the highest credit marks in recitation, but was 
known in the privacy of one or two of the girls' 
rooms to assume the "airs" of a bandit, flourish 
an imaginary sword, and converse in a daring, 
slashing way, supposed to be known only among 
pirates with their fellows. 



Study did not end with the abandonment of the 
classroom, but, as she had planned, went on in new 
forms, and with the intent and intensity of original 
research. Her schoolmates, when they visited her 



34 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

in her quiet little room, with its bright south and 
east windows brimming the cosy nook with warm 
sunshine, found her always at her desk with books, 
paper and pen, for with her independent mind, the 
thoughts and investigations of others were not prop- 
erly her own until she had fixed them in the mold of 
personal judgment, and phrased them in the force- 
ful language of her own opinions. 

While society, or the superficial intercourse known 
by this name, had little charm for this studious 
young woman, whose keen spirit soon pierced its 
disguises and rated it at its real value, to her journal 
she philosophized about it in this wise : 

"As I gain in experience, I see more and more 
distinctly that a young lady to be of value in society 
must have accomplishments. That august tyrant 
asks every candidate for preferment in its ranks: 
* What can you do for me? Can you tell me a story, 
make me a joke, or sing me a song? I am to be 
amused!' Society is not for scholarly discipline. 
Study is for private life. Benefactions, loves, hates, 
emoluments, business — all these go on behind the 
scenes. Men grow learned, and good, and great 
otherwhere than in society. They ponder, and 
delve, and discover in secret places. Women suffer 
and grow uncomplaining in toil and sacrifice, and 
learn that life's grandest lesson is summed up in four 
simple words — * Let us be patient ' — in the nooks 
and corners of the earth. Into society they may 



STUDENT LIFE 35 

bring not their labors, but the fruit of their labors. 
Public opinion, which is the mouthpiece of society, 
asks not of any man : * When did you do this, where 
did you accomplish it?' but, 'What have you done? 
We do not care for the process, give us the results.' 
"Society is to everyday life what recess is to the 
schoolboy. If it has been crowded from this, its 
right relation, then it is for every right-thinking 
member to aid in the restoration to its true position. 
Let no cynical philosopher inveigh against society. 
Let none say its fruits are simply heartlessness and 
hypocrisy. Man is a creature of habits ; when among 
his fellows, he does his best studiously at first, un- 
thinkingly afterward. I will venture to assert that 
the man who was greater than any other who walked 
the earth was the kindest, the best bred, the most 
polite. Society is not an incidental, unimportant 
affair ; it is the outward sign of an inward grace. Let 
us, then, if we can, be graceful; cultivate conversa- 
tional ability, musical talent; improve our manners 
— and our beauty, if we are blessed with it. Har- 
monious sounds cheer the heart. Fitness is ad- 
mirable. All these are means of happiness to us 
who have sorrow enough at best. It is no light thing 
to perform the duties we owe to society, and it is 
better to approximate than to ignore them." 

In the vacation summer of 1858, on returning 
from Evanston, Frances took possession of the little 



36 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

schoolhouse near Forest Home, and for six weeks, 
with great comfort and pleasure, carried on the 
school herself. Early in the autumn the Willard 
family removed to Evanston. Tenants were placed 
in charge of their beloved Forest Home, and 
"Swampscott " became their residence — a pleasant 
place near the lake, the large grounds of which were 
Mr. Willard's pride and pleasure, as he saw them, 
under his skillful management, growing constantly 
more beautiful, Nearly every tree and vine was 
set with his own hands, often assisted by Frank, 
and all were imported from Forest Home. 



The life of the home was a very bright and merry 
one at this time, for the three children were all to- 
gether, all earnestly at work, but all as uniquely bent 
on enjoyment as ever they had been in the old de- 
lightful days of Forest Home. Oliver, having 
finished his college studies, was preparing for the 
ministry; Mary was joyfully nearing her own gradua- 
tion day — full of enthusiasm for knowledge, for 
happiness, for all the real values of life. Frances, 
alone at home, deep in a young girl's philosophy of 
existence, was nevertheless as fond of a romp, a 
joke, and a good time as any girl to-day of the par- 
ticular fun and frolic that young people nowadays 
engage in. Deeply envious of the brothers and 
friends who were so fond of their college fraternity, 
and so tantalizing with their half-displayed secrets, 
the girls of 1859 and 1860, an exceptionally bright 
and clever company, organized a secret society of 
their own, in which Frances and Mary were among 
the deepest plotters. Since Greek letters were in 



STUDENT LIFE 37 

order, ours was the "Iota Omega'* fraternity, or 
sorority; dark and dreadful were its ceremonies, 
grave and momentous its secrets. It was not al- 
lowed to degenerate, however, into anything worse 
than autograph hunting, and even in these early 
days of that nuisance, we received some sharp rep- 
rimands for our importunity. Horace Greeley par- 
ticularly berated us in a long letter, which, fortu- 
nately, we could not entirely decipher, and which was 
so wretchedly illegible that we could exhibit it to 
envious Sigma Chi brothers without fear of taunt 
or ridicule. Abraham Lincoln gave his friendly 
"sign manual," Longfellow wrote out a verse of 
"Excelsior" for the collection, but Queen Victoria, 
alas ! to whom we had applied in a letter addressed 
"Victoria, 

Buckingham Palace, 
London, 

England, The World," 
never deigned us a reply. 

Taking Miss Willard's student life all in all, we 
find her brave and modest, merry and wise, winsome, 
gentle, generous and good, gracious in her dignity, 
dainty in attire, superb in her friendliness, and so 
excellent in her scholarship that she was made vale- 
dictorian of her class. 



CHAPTER III 

RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 

As a lisping child Frances learned the mighty first 
chapter of St. John's Gospel from her mother's 
lips. It was the first lesson she ever learned by 
heart. Then came the rocking-chair lullaby in her 
father 's deep tones : 

"A charge to keep I have, 
A God to glorify, 
A never-dying soul to save 
And fit it for the sky. 

"To serve the present age, 
My calling to fulfill, 
Oh, may it all my powers engage 
To do my Master's will." 

A prophetic hymn, this first one ever taught the 
young warrior soul, whose "charge" and whose 
"calling" far outran the boundary of her father's 
conserving thought. Then followed the old Bible 
stories, delightful to a child, yet stored with the 
sacred history of the soul. Somewhat later, "Pil- 
grim's Progress" became the vade mecum and 
"Greatheart" her chosen knight. 

Among Miss Willard's treasures long and care- 

38 



RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 39 

fully guarded was found a little book bearing the 
title, "Memoir of Nathan Dickerman," probably 
the first memorial biography on which her childish 
eyes rested. On the fly-leaf is written, "Read on 
the long, lonesome Sundays at Forest Home in my 
childhood. I remember a delicate, exquisite odor 
that adhered to the book from its relation some- 
where with a sweet and pervasive perfume so that 
I early got the notion of fragrance and religion as 
inseparable." 

The Forest Home trio were early trained to "deeds 
of week-day holiness." The lonesomeness of the 
long Sundays was occasionally brightened by a drive 
to church, or, when there was no service to attend, 
how humanly sweet, simple, and sacred the Sabbath 
of the home was made ! In the morning the stately 
father walked to the riverside among the sentinel 
trees, his little girls stepping proudly beside him, 
and his grave voice carrying to their young minds 
and hearts the vibrations of the great and devout 
thoughts of the race. In the afternoon, as Miss 
Willard's hallowed memory pictures it to us, "there 
were walks with mother, when she clipped a sprig of 
caraway or fennel for Mary and me or a bunch of 
sweet-smelling pinks for Oliver from the pretty little 
beds in the heart of the orchard, where no one was pri- 
vileged to go except with mother. Here she talked 
to us of God's great beauty in the thoughts He 



40 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

works out for us; she taught us tenderness toward 
every little sweet-faced flower and piping bird; she 
showed us the shapes of clouds and what resem- 
blances they bore to things upon the earth; she made 
us love the Heart that is at Nature 's heart. When 
one of us was afraid of the dark and came to mother 
with the question 'Why?* she replied, 'Because you 
do not know and trust God enough yet; just once 
get it into your heart as well as your head that the 
world lies in God 's arms like a babe on its mother 's 
breast, and you will never be afraid of anything.' ' 
A loving aunt, long years a teacher, visited the 
home, and leading the children out under the far-off 
stars at night, made them forevermore familiar with 
the flaming belt of Orion and the clustering Pleiades, 
quoting reverently lofty passages from the Bible 
about the starry heavens; while Frances, looking 
upward from the vantage ground of the wide prairie, 
would repeat, almost with tears, the lines from 
Addison taught her by her mother: 

The spacious firmament on high 
And all the blue ethereal sky, 
With spangled heavens, a shining frame. 
Their Great Original proclaim; 
The unwearied sun, from day to day 
Doth his Creator's power display, 
And publishes to every land 
The work of an Almighty hand. 

"O sacred Sabbaths of our childhood! O 
early mornings in the spring, when we ran together 





i 



j*p 





"MY FOUR 



RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 41 

through the dewy grass or laid our ears to the brown 
bosom of the earth to hear her vibrant breathing, 
to thrill at her pulsing heart! O birds that sang 
for me, and flowers that bloomed, and mother-love 
that brooded and father-love that held ! And God 's 
sky over all, and Himself near unto us everywhere; 
yea, nearer than near! Surely heavenly and with- 
out end are the blessings of the Lord to children! 
Verily, His goodness and His mercy are with us all 
our days." So sang the heart of Frances Willard 
in its ripe womanhood when moved by the recurring 
touch of those years. 

Miss Willard 's enjoyment of the Sunday twilight 
hour of song dated back to Forest Home when 
"Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah," or Kirke 
White's "Star of Bethlehem" used to melt the 
heart of the child, even then conscious of the struggle 
between natural resistance to religious influence and 
the love that yields itself in submission to God. 

If she were slow in growing to the harmonies of 
adult womanhood, when heart, mind, and life are in 
unison, she developed constantly toward them. 
Perhaps she would never have been the effective 
character she became, without her positive and 
somewhat turbulent temper. "If I stubbed my toe 
against anything, it was prompt instinct within me 
to turn again and rend that thing." " If I remember 
rightly," she said, "our ancient brother Xerxes fur- 
nished several such entertaining incidents to his- 



42 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

tory." But even in her warlike moods she was like 
a wholesome spring day. Its breeze may get things 
disarranged a trifle, but there is plenty of oxygen. 

As the first flame of youth began to kindle in the 
cheeks and eyes of this reticent yet ambitious girl, 
she coveted such wealth of beauty as she saw in other 
faces and wept with discontent at what she consider- 
ed her own modest competence of loveliness. Her 
mother tenderly comforted her in mother fashion, 
but added: "Grandfather Hill was the noblest 
looking man I ever saw, and you are very like him, 
my dear." Thereupon the active little girl instantly 
resolved to be very "noble looking,' ' and that she 
might be quite complete and admirable, resolved 
to be very noble feeling also, a resolution she cer- 
tainly lived up to, although not until the impulse 
from which it sprang was tempered by many years 
of God's grace. 

"I am afraid it almost turned a rather innocent 
outward vanity into an inward pride, much more 
difficult to get rid of," she afterward said. "As for 
my brother's kindly speech, * Never mind, Frank, 
if you are not the handsomest girl in school, you 
are the smartest,' I nearly made a prig of myself 
over it, because, as Watson's Dr. Johnson would 
say, * I was not without a modest consciousness that 
it was true.' It was the old story of the rag doll 
over again. * She's a rag doll — only she's good, 



RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 43 

and not proud like a wax doll.' And it makes me 
laugh even now to think how simply and naturally 
in all our play 'organizations,' the chief incentive, 
reward, and honor of the leading officer's position 
was a right to have the 'say so.' " It made one 
smile tenderly sometimes to note the way in which, 
in quiet hours, she was inclined to deplore, as a half 
sin, all this development of the "selfhood" which 
yet gives edge, strength, and practical force to our 
abilities in this wayward and work-a-day world. 

How blessed she was in her mother-confidant, 
that wise woman who knew that the storm and 
stress period of youth is normally inevitable, that 
the natural will must get its natural growth and 
training before there is any truly individual will to 
be submitted to God or to bend its force to God's 
service. She was not a woman of fears. If she had 
any she kept them to herself and shared her courage 
with her daughter. She only told the Lord, know- 
ing He was in the heart of her child, to will and to 
do of His good pleasure. 

A passage from Miss Willard's journal when a 
teacher at twenty-four reveals the questioning soul 
seeking after the truth of an eternal existence: 

Two letters have been received from two poet- 
souled women in obscure life, and for the time they 
have transfigured me. Full of insight they were, 
fQr these women love much and read the significance 



44 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

of destiny by clear burning tapers lighted at the 
altar of consecration to their homes. I have read 
of the French Revolution and Charlotte Corday, 
and the Unknown and Invisible has risen before me, 
misty and dark, as I wonder what vision burst on 
the freed soul of that marvelous girl as she lay on 
the plank of the scaffold and "the beam dropped, 
the blade glided, the head fell." I have listened 
to the Bible reading at our quiet chapel prayers, and 
have pondered much over Job 's words, " Why should 
a man contend against God?" and as I thought, my 
soul went out after Him, this awful, overwhelming 
Power that holds all things in equilibrium, and has 
come back again with some dim, shuddering con- 
sciousness that He is, and some sweet faith that "He 
is a rewarder of all such as diligently seek him." I 
have looked at my pliant, active fingers and wonder- 
ed over this strange imparted force that is ordained 
to live a while in me, that joins itself in some weird 
way to muscle, sinew, tissue, and bone; that filters 
through my nerves and makes all things alive, among 
them the organic shape that is called me. I wish I 
could talk to-night with some one who would say, 
with quick, emphatic gesture, "Yes, I understand; 
I have felt so too." "Be Csesar to thyself." The 
words are brave, but to-night I am too tired to say 
them truly, and so I will pray to God and go to 
sleep. 

It was during the leisure of convalescence from the 
serious illness that prevented her presence at the 
graduating exercises of her class, that Frances 
Willard's first affirmative turning toward a re- 



RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 45 

ligious life began, and it began very simply. These 
"hidden things of the heart " are best told by herself. 

GOD AND MY HEART 

It was one night in June, 1859. I was nineteen 
years old and was lying on my bed in my home at 
Evanston, Illinois, ill with typhoid fever. The 
doctor had said that the crisis would soon arrive, 
and I had overheard his words. Mother was watch- 
ing in the next room. My whole soul was intent 
as two voices seemed to speak within me, one of 
them saying, " My child, give me thy heart. I called 
thee long by joy, I call thee now by chastisement; 
but I have called thee always and only because I 
love thee with an everlasting love." The other 
said, "Surely, you who are so resolute and strong 
will not break down now because of physical feeble- 
ness. You are a reasoner and never yet were you 
convinced of the reasonableness of Christianity. 
Hold out now and you will feel when you get well 
just as you used to feel." 

One presence was to me warm, sunny, safe, with 
an impression as of snowy wings ; the other cold, dis- 
mal, dark, with the nutter of a bat. The con- 
troversy did not seem brief; in my weakness such 
a strain would doubtless appear longer than it was. 
But at last, solemnly, and with my whole heart, I 
said, not in spoken words, but in the deeper lan- 
guage of consciousness, "If God lets me get well 
I'll try to be a Christian girl." But this resolve 
did not bring peace. "You must at once declare 
this resolution," said the inward voice. Strange 
as it seems, and complete as had always been my 



46 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

frankness toward my dear mother, far beyond what 
is usual even between mother and child, it cost me a 
greater humbling of my pride to tell her than the 
resolution had cost of self-surrender, or than any 
other utterance of my whole life has involved. 
After a hard battle, in which I lifted up my soul to 
God for strength, I faintly called to her from the 
next room and said: "Mother, I wish to tell you 
that if God lets me get well I '11 try to be a Christian 
girl." She took my hand, knelt beside my bed, and 
softly wept and prayed. I then turned my face to 
the wall and sweetly slept. 

That winter we had revival services in the old 
Methodist church at Evanston. Doctor (afterward 
Bishop) Foster was president of the university, and 
his sermons, with those of Doctors Dempster, 
Bannister, and others, deeply stirred my heart. I 
had convalesced slowly and spent several weeks at 
Forest Home, so these meetings seemed to be my 
first public opportunity of declaring my new alle- 
giance. The very earliest invitation to go forward, 
kneel at the altar, and be prayed for was heeded by 
me. Waiting for no one, counseling with no one, I 
went alone along the aisle with my heart beating so 
loud that I thought I could see as well as hear it beat 
as I moved forward. One of the most timid, shrink- 
ing, and sensitive of natures, what it meant to me to 
go forward thus, with my student friends gazing 
upon me, can never be told. I had been known as 
"skeptical," and prayers (of which I then spoke 
lightly) had been asked for me in the church the 
year before. For fourteen nights in succession I 
thus knelt at the altar, expecting some utter trans- 



RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 47 

formation — some portion of heaven to be placed 
in my inmost heart, as I have seen the box of valu- 
ables placed in the corner-stone of a building and 
firmly set, plastered over, and fixed in its place for- 
ever. This is what I had determined must be done, 
and was loath to give it up. I prayed and agonized, 
but what I sought did not occur. 

One night when I returned to my room baffled, 
weary, and discouraged, and knelt beside my bed, 
it came to me quietly that this was not the way; 
that my "conversion," my "turning about," my 
"religious experience" (re-ligare, to bind again), 
had reached its crisis on that summer night when I 
said * ' yes ' ' to God. A quiet certitude of this pervad- 
ed my consciousness, and the next night I told the 
public congregation so, gave my name to the church 
as a probationer, and after holding this relation for 
a year — waiting for my sister Mary, who joined 
later, to pass her six months' probation — I was 
baptized and joined the church, May 5, 1861, "in 
full connection." Meanwhile I had regularly led, 
since that memorable June, a prayerful life — which 
I had not done for some months previous to that 
time; studied my Bible, and, as I believe, evinced 
by my daily life that I was taking counsel of the 
heavenly powers. Prayer meeting, class meeting, 
and church services were most pleasant to me, and 
I became an active worker, seeking to lead others 
to Christ. I had learned to think of and believe 
in God in terms of Christ Jesus. This had always 
been my difficulty, as I believe it is that of so many. 
It seems to me that by nature all spiritually disposed 
people (and with the exception of about six months 



48 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

of my life, I was always strongly that) are Unitarians, 
and my chief mental difficulty has always been, and 
is to-day after all these years, to adjust myself to 
the idea of "Three in one" and "One in three." 
But while I will not judge others, there is for me no 
final rest except as I translate the concept of God 
into the nomenclature and personality of the New 
Testament. What Paul says of Christ is what I 
say; the love John felt, it is my dearest wish to 
cherish. 

In her ripest years she wrote from the rich full- 
ness of knowledge and experience: "The Life of 
God flowing into the soul of man is the only Life, 
and all my being sets toward Him as the rivers to 
the sea. Celestial things grow dearer to me every 
day, and I grow poorer in my own eyes save as God 
gives to me. I still care a little too much for the 
good words of the good, but God helps me even in 
that." 

How Christlike she became the whole world 
knows. How great she grew in gentleness, how 
simple in prayer, how trustfully she waited upon 
the Lord, whose grace all her childhood through 
was touching her fine spirit to the finest issues of 
her future life ! And at the last, when God for many 
years had had His will and way with her, how the 
whole self-nature became the obedient servant of 
her inward humility toward Him, and her outgoing 
helpfulness to men. The "good words of the good" 
are forever abundantly hers. 










PORTRAIT AT TWENTY-ONE YEARS 



CHAPTER IV 
THE TEACHER 

It was at Forest Home where all her young 
ambitions were born that Frances, recuperating 
from the illness of her graduation year, determined 
to teach. Few other paths were then open to 
adventurous spirits among women, and even this 
course was strongly deprecated by Miss Willard's 
father, while he must have admired his own force 
of character as shown in his child's outcry for 
independence at whatever cost. "I have not yet 
been out in the world to do and dare for myself," 
she argued. "Single-handed and alone I should like 
to try my powers, for I have remained in the nest a 
full-grown bird long enough, and too long. It is 
an anomaly in natural history.' ' 

Through the superintendent of the Cook County 
public schools a primitive red schoolhouse away out 
on the prairie, ten miles from Chicago, was dis- 
covered minus a teacher, and this plucky young 
woman as usual won the day and in her twenty-first 
year found at "Harlem" a surplus of isolation and a 
sufficient field for the cultivation of her powers. 
While packing her trunk for this first new departure, 
Miss Willard philosophized thus : 

49 



50 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

"If I become a teacher in some school that I do 
not like, if I go away alone and try what I myself 
can do, and suffer, and am tired and lonesome; if 
I am in a position where I must have all the respon- 
sibility myself and must be alternately the hammer 
that strikes and the anvil that bears, I think I may 
grow to be strong and earnest in practice, as I have 
always tried to be in theory. So here goes for a 
fine character. If I were not intent upon it, I 
could live contented here at Swampscott all my 
days." 

Well for her that of good humor and stoutness of 
heart she had abundant supply, for upon her arrival 
at Harlem she found her savage little pupils had 
broken the windows and were engaged in "sundry 
forms of controversy, emphasized with fisticuffs." 
Imagine the wonder of these twenty pupils, most 
of whom were foreigners of different nationalitiesi 
when on the opening morning this frank-souled, 
sweet- voiced young schoolmistress read a few verses 
from her little pocket Testament and suggested they 
should sing a hymn. We are inclined to differ with 
Miss Willard's afterthought that the hymn selected 
was "incongruous though familiar," and heartily 
wish we might have heard the aspiring little com- 
pany's attempt to sing "I want to be an angel." 

Miss Willard's voluminous records of this first 
period of teaching would make a valuable handbook 



THE TEACHER 51 

of the art, summed up in her prescient observation, 
"When you get them all to think alike and act 
alike by your command, you can do with them what 
you will." The hammer blows were not lacking, the 
metal rang true, the brave young spirit got more 
discipline than her pupils, the teacher's head was 
often bowed in prayer. She found a generous- 
hearted girl friend in the home that sheltered her 
during these days when life was a serious business, 
and the two girls started a Sunday school in the 
forlorn little schoolhouse, out of which grew a 
well-ordered Methodist church in what is now the 
charming Chicago suburb of River Forest. 

Later, as an assistant in the Academy at Kankakee, 
forty miles from Chicago, Miss Willard spent a 
single term, her brother Oliver meanwhile succeed- 
ing her on the Harlem prairie, going thither with his 
father's blessing and his sensible reminder, "If you 
do as well with that school as Frank has done I 
shall be perfectly satisfied." 

One of the first beautiful outgrowths of the 
independent life this young teacher had longed for, 
was seen when the County Bible Association met in 
Kankakee, and Miss Willard wrote her mother, 
"When they took up a collection and I wrote *F. 
E. W., $1,' I felt a new thanksgiving that I could 
earn and use money according to my own judgment. 
I have promised myself that I will give as much as 



52 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

I can from all my earnings to promote the doing of 
good in the world." 

After a home vacation Miss Willard again taught 
the Harlem school for a few weeks in the spring of 
1861, and on her return to Evanston, as she has 
chronicled the story, for three-quarters of a year she 
wore a ring and acknowledged an allegiance based 
upon the supposition that an intellectual comrade- 
ship was sure to deepen into unity of heart. In 1862 
we find her, in company with Mary Bannister, 
battling with youthful Evanstonians in the public 
school; a typical American specimen of that institu- 
tion, where demure and well-bred children brought 
bouquets and beaming smiles to "teacher/* and 
where two overgrown boys, alarmed at Miss Wil- 
lard's approach, stick in hand, vaulted out of an 
open window and never dared return. 

Into these bright days, when teaching and the 
charm of home joys made a composite well-nigh 
perfect, there came the first great grief of Miss 
Willard's life. She lost her sister Mary, the gentle 
girl with sensitive ethical standards, keen love of 
the beautiful and the good, whose going changed all 
the world to her sister Frances, and, in an age of 
skepticism, gave her "an anchor that would hold." 

Other changes rapidly followed. The sweet 
home by the lake, every tree and shrub surrounding 
it beloved by Frances, was sold; Forest Home passed 



THE TEACHER 53 

out of the hands that had builded and blessed it; 
Oliver, the young theologian, and Mary Bannister, 
his wife, were soon to go to their new home in 
Denver, Colorado, when in August of this year, 
1862, Frances was elected Teacher of Natural 
Sciences in her alma mater. Until the close of the 
year she taught nine and ten classes a day, while 
the keynote of all her underlying thought and spirit's 
yearning was set to the pitiful refrain, "Mary 
didn't get well." 

Two years of teaching in the Pittsburg Female 
College opened a wider circle of life to Miss Willard. 
A friend then closely associated with her writes: 
"We all recognized in the brilliant, genial, warm- 
hearted girl a genius which was rare and which 
seemed to give promise of much in the future, and 
yet none of us dreamed of the career that was before 
her and of the grand achievements of her life. She 
was always bubbling over with wit and humor, and 
at the same time was full of pathos and sentiment. 
She had already been touched by the subduing 
power of a great sorrow which had not embittered 
her but had made her more tender and loving toward 
all. She seemed to have a vocabulary of her own, and 
often used words and phrases of her own coining, 
and with a sang froid which no other person could 
ever imitate. I can see her now as I often saw her 
then, sitting on the steps of the old college of a 



54 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

summer evening, surrounded by a bevy of teachers 
and students, holding them spellbound by the power 
of her vivid imagination, and ofttimes convulsed 
with laughter at her sallies of genuine wit. She had 
a wonderfully magnetic influence over young girls — 
believed in them, trusted them, stood by them 
(often when others condemned), sought out those 
who were shy and retiring and had little confidence 
in themselves, praised them for their smallest efforts, 
and aimed ever to inspire them with her own high 
ideals of life and character." While in Pittsburg, 
Miss Willard's strange new sense of loss and loneli- 
ness was solaced as she sang herself into the pages 
of "Nineteen Beautiful Years," that blessed biog- 
raphy of her heavenly human sister Mary that 
tells everybody to be good. 

Upon Miss Willard's return to Evanston she was 
one of a talented trio who taught the Grove School, 
a private enterprise, where Miss Willard found an 
opportunity of putting many of her unique pedagogic 
inventions to a successful practical test among the 
"best-born and best-mannered children in Evanston. ' ' 
In the summer vacation of that year Miss Willard, 
as Corresponding Secretary of the American Meth- 
odist Episcopal Ladies' Centenary Association, 
helped to build Heck Hall in Evanston, a home 
building for the students of the Garrett Biblical 
Institute. 




PRKCKPTRESS, LIMA SKMINARY 



THE TEACHER 55 

When, in the autumn of 1866, her parents were 
established in Rest Cottage, their new home, Miss 
Willard taught for a year as preceptress of the 
Genesee Wesleyan Seminary in the historic village 
of Lima, New York, only thirty miles from her 
birthplace. In January, 1868, another severance 
in the sacred home circle brought its vigils and its 
sorrow, Miss Willard's honored father, after a 
lingering illness, the last weeks of which were spent 
in Church ville, N. Y., "going triumphantly home 
to God.' , 

When, in the spring, Miss Kate A. Jackson, a 
loved and sympathetic friend who for several years 
had lived and taught with Miss Willard, proposed 
a "tour of Europe," it was a joy that lost nothing 
for its complete and fresh surprise. What more 
natural than for Miss Jackson to gain her generous 
father's consent to meet every expense of the ex- 
tended journey these enthusiasts planned, the keen 
and kindly donor telling Miss Willard she must 
believe that it was to him the fulfillment of an ear- 
nest desire that his daughter should go abroad, but 
that never until now had he found one with whom he 
felt inclined to send her? Could Miss Willard's 
mother bear the loneliness of another separation? 
Yes, Spartan that she was, with her child's good 
ever forming the horizon of her own hopes and happi- 
ness, she would go to Oliver and Mary in Appleton, 



56 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

Wisconsin, while Frances and Kate studied Europe 
and themselves. 

Miss Willard returned from that wonderful trip 
abroad with a human picture gallery in her heart 
far exceeding in its riches and realities the galleries 
of Europe whose masterpieces crowded her brain. 
"What can be done to make the world a wider place 
for women?" was the question that surged through 
her soul 

In Paris came the prophetic inspiration which, if 
courageously carried out, she felt would best satisfy 
her resolute ideals. This brave plan was "to study 
by reading, personal observation, and acquaintance 
the woman question in Europe, and, after returning 
to America, to study it further in relation to her 
own land; talk in public on the subject, ancf cast her- 
self with what weight or weakness she possessed 
against the only foe of what she conceived to be the 
justice of the subject — unenlightened public opin- 
ion." "It is to be a word-and-idea battle," she 
wrote, "that will only deepen with years and must 
at last have a result that will delight all who have 
helped to hasten it." It was "the human question" 
rather than the woman question, as Miss Willard 
has eloquently affirmed, that was shaping itself in 
her mind and winning her heart's loyalty, when 
on St. Valentine's day, 1871, she was elected pres- 
ident of the Evanston College for Ladies — the first 
woman to whom such a title was ever accorded. 




DEAN OF WOMAN'S COLLEGE, 
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 



THE TEACHER 57 

The history of the relation of this college to its 
neighbor University, the Northwestern, has more 
than once repeated itself in the evolution of the 
higher education of women during the last thirty 
years. Mrs. Mary F. Haskin and other thoughtful 
women of Evanston, anxious to secure for their 
daughters the advantages for study they themselves 
had missed, founded a woman's college with a 
board of women trustees, and a woman president 
who should confer diplomas and be recognized and 
proved as the peer of men in administrative power. 
Coincident with the transfer of Miss Willard's alma 
mater, the Northwestern Female College, with its 
list of alumnae, to the trusteeship of the Evanston 
College for Ladies, Rev. Dr. (afterward Bishop) 
E. O. Haven accepted the presidency of the North- 
western University on condition that "every door 
should be flung wide to humanity's gentler half." 
Doctor Haven possessed sufficient skill and diplo- 
macy to meet the problem of this triangle of educa- 
tional interests — the old college, the new college, and 
the university — and under his presidency the two 
institutions moved on in the utmost harmony. 

The new president of the college threw herself 
with great zest into this endeavor. A better build- 
ing was needed; the "Woman's Fourth of July" was 
planned, and for three months Miss Willard waked 
and slept in a combined atmosphere of education 
and patriotism. The Educational Association, with 



58 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

Mrs. A. H. Hoge as president, sent out countless 
circulars; Miss Willard's ingenious brain and busy- 
hand were back of many of the original plans that 
resulted in a "Woman's Fourth," with no suggestion 
of cannon or cracker, but with a subscription list 
that aggregated $30,000, and a sale of $3,000 worth 
of dinner to the hungry participants in the fun and 
frolic of the day. Everybody helped in a most gen- 
erous fashion; the village authorities presented the 
Committee with one of its parks as the building site 
of the college, and on that Fourth the corner-stone 
of the new building was laid, women's hands assisting 
in the ceremony amid great rejoicings of heart, 
saying, "Grace unto it." 

The first catalogue of the Evanston College for 
Ladies contains a statement from the president, 
Miss Willard, regarding her plan for "self-govern- 
ment," a question of such vital interest to her then 
and throughout her life, and to the cause of educa- 
tion as well, that we record it briefly here : 

The general basis of government in this institution 
is that merit shall be distinguished by privilege. 
Any young lady who establishes for herself a trust- 
worthy character will be trusted accordingly. After 
a probation of one term, anyone who, during this 
time, has been loyal to the regulations of the school, 
and has not once required reproof, will have her 
name inscribed upon the "Roll of Honor" and will 
be invested with certain powers and responsibilities 



THE TEACHER 59 

usually restricted to the "Faculty." The "Roll of 
Honor" has its constitution, officers and regular 
meetings, and sends reports to the teachers relative 
to the trusts of which it is made the depository. 
A single reproof "conditions," and two reproofs re- 
move any of its members, who can regain their 
places by the same process through which they were 
first attained. Those who, during one entire term, 
have not been "conditioned" upon the roll of honor 
are promoted to the "Self-Governed List" and give 
this pledge: "I will try so to act that, if all others 
followed my example, our school would need no 
rules whatever. In manners and in punctuality 
I will try to be a model, and in all my intercourse 
with my teachers and schoolmates I will seek, above 
all else, the things that make for peace." 

Thenceforward these young ladies "do as they 
please," so long as they " please " to do right. Every 
pupil in school is eligible, first, to the roll of honor; 
next, to a place among the " self -governed " ; hence 
there is no ground of jealousy. Scholarship does 
not enter into the requirements of admission — 
character is placed above all competition here. 

It is believed that this system may develop a 
true sentiment of "honor" among pupils, one that 
shall favor the school rather than the delinquent. 
The false ideas of honor that still prevail to an 
absurd extent among young people at school are 
the last relics of the mediaeval system of oppression, 
and of espionage, its sworn ally. As a democratic 
form of government inspires the sentiment of loyalty 
to itself, and implies the duty of all patriotic citizens 
to bring to justice those whose conduct threatens 



60 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

the public welfare, so in an institution where the 
pupils are intrusted with a part of the responsibility, 
and where the possibility of self-government is set 
before them, it is a logical inference that they will 
stand by the government of which they form a part. 

It is interesting to note that Miss Willard thus 
anticipated by a whole generation the student gov- 
ernment that now obtains at Wellesley College and 
many other educational institutions in our country. 

Miss Willard was facing one of the gravest prob- 
lems of the educator, "How can I make school 
discipline most conducive to the formation of noble, 
self-reliant character? " For proof of the efficacy of 
this plan, tested for two years at the Evanston 
College for Ladies, I turned to one of her warm- 
hearted, quick-brained pupils of that history-making 
period, Mrs. Isabella Webb Parks, a leading Roll of 
Honor girl, now the mother-teacher of a large 
fireside circle of her own, and she contributes the 
following sketch: 

I met Miss Willard for the first time in the fall of 
1871. The Northwestern University, at Evanston, 
Illinois, had just opened its doors to women. The 
women of Evanston, anxious to make the experi- 
ment of co-education a success in their town, had 
organized the "Evanston College for Ladies," an 
institution designed to provide the young ladies who 
should attend the University with home surround- 
ings, with women for their counselors and friends. 



THE TEACHER 61 

Of this institution Miss Willard was the Dean, and 
it was my happy lot to be one of those whom she 
always lovingly designated as "my girls." What 
it was for girls to be closely associated with Miss 
Willard in the formative period of their lives, only 
those who knew her well can at all appreciate. Such 
broad views of life and destiny as she opened to our 
sight; such high ideals of character as she set before 
us; such visions of the heights to which we might 
climb, of the noble deeds we might achieve; and, 
with it all, such a deep and weighty sense of respon- 
sibility for the use we made of life with its gifts and 
opportunities, I have never seen nor felt through 
the inspiration of anyone else. To be associated 
with Frances Willard was like living upon Alpine 
heights. 

Her first Friday afternoon talk to us struck the 
keynote of her influence. In those days co-educa- 
tion was still looked upon as very much of an experi- 
ment, and, though I doubt if it has been tried in 
more friendly and congenial surroundings than at 
Evanston, there were many there who looked doubt- 
fully upon it and were ready to seize upon the slight- 
est indications of evil. Before Miss Willard was 
gathered in that old chapel a company of average 
girls. None of them wanted to do anything very 
bad. Many were inspired with a more or less ear- 
nest purpose to make the most of themselves, and 
had, therefore, sought these opportunities for higher 
education. But the majority had no clearer under- 
standing of life's meaning, no deeper appreciation 
of its responsibilities, than is usual among girls of 
their age. They possessed, moreover, quite the 



m FRANCES E. WILLARD 

average amount of animal spirits and love of fun. 
Had they been placed in a regulation female sem- 
inary with its multitude of inconsequential rules, 
they would have acted as girls usually do under 
such circumstances — set at naught the exasperating 
and trivial restrictions which implied a lack of good 
sense and self-respect on their part. To my knowl- 
edge, there were among them girls who only waited 
the occasion to rebel against such strictures. But 
in that first talk Miss Willard disarmed all such 
incipient rebellion. She gave us briefly the history 
of the opening of the University to women, told of 
President E. O. Haven's generous, brotherly inter- 
est and faith in us; of the anxiety with which the 
women of Evanston had planned for our coming 
and had sought to make the way plain and easy be- 
fore us; of how ready they were to help us in any 
way we needed and with what interest they were 
watching us. Though we saw only unfamiliar faces 
about us, yet, she said, "Friendly eyes are upon you 
as you walk our streets and the kind hands of stran- 
gers are ready to clasp yours." Then she reminded 
us that this was a new movement, a step forward in 
woman's advancement, and its success must de- 
pend chiefly upon those in whose interest it was 
made. With the impressive tone and manner 
which only those who have heard her can appreciate, 
she said, "Your feet and mine are treading ground 
untrod before. I am speaking to those whose in- 
tellects must be active and keen, whose hearts must 
be loyal and true, else the new experiment is a fail- 
ure." By the time she had finished, every girl in 
her presence felt that the eyes of all Evanston were 



THE TEACHER 63 

fixed upon our little band with anxious but sym- 
pathetic and kindly interest; that the cause of co- 
education depended very largely upon our success as 
students and our loyalty to the right; that even the 
larger cause of woman 's advancement was involved 
in the use we made of the opportunities now placed 
within our reach. I do not believe there was a girl 
there who would not have despised herself if she had 
knowingly been false to the responsibilities resting 
upon her. 

It was not long after this that an incident occurred, 
small in itself, yet very significant of the effect of Miss 
Willard 's influence. The grounds of the old Seminary 
which we occupied temporarily in the hope of enter- 
ing a year later the beautiful new college then build- 
ing, were very near the railroad track. One after- 
noon a train passed loaded with young men students. 
There were twenty or more girls in the yard or on the 
porch, and the young men on the train gave the 
"Fern. Sem." the Chautauqua salute. Not a hand- 
kerchief waved in return. On the contrary, the 
demonstration was regarded in the light of an insult 
and called forth some indignant remarks. Yet 
there were girls in that group who, under other 
circumstances, would have considered it great sport 
to answer the salute, principally because it was a 
defiance of a command which implied lack of sense 
and self-respect in those upon whom it was laid. 
Miss Willard had given no specific directions to 
her girls regarding their deportment toward young 
men or anyone else. She had simply inspired them 
with a sense of their individual responsibility, had 
made them feel that greater interests than they had 



64 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

dreamed of depended upon their conduct. An 
"arrest of thought' ' was always, in her view, a far 
more effectual way of reaching the desired end than 
were rules and monitors, for she believed that the 
only true government is self-government. It was 
upon this idea that she founded her self-governed 
system, which was a perfect success. 

Never before had I lived under so keen a sense 
of personal responsibility, nor has it been exceeded 
in later years. One who lived under her influence, 
must have been callous indeed to have resisted it, 
for she appealed always to the highest motives. 
"Help us always to be what in her best moments 
each of us wants to be," was the frequently recurring 
petition in her prayer at our evening devotions. To 
that ideal self she always appealed. She seemed 
to ignore the possibility of our allowing any lower 
self to have a voice in making up our decisions, and 
the self to which she thus appealed responded. It 
was the same years afterward when, instead of half 
a hundred school girls, she gathered as her pupils 
"the women of two hemispheres." And very sel- 
dom did those appealed to disappoint her. It 
could not be expected that there would be no ex- 
ceptions: Judas became a thief and a traitor under 
the constant influence of the Master himself, and 
there were a few who did not measure up to Miss 
■ Willard 's faith and trust. But by far the most have 
been lifted up to higher planes of life and thought 
by her generous confidence. 

It was not strange that warm-hearted girls, their 
affections unchilled by experience with the world's 
coldness and their faith unshaken by its deceptions, 
should have idolized her. Some onlookers, behold- 




WILLARD HALL, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 



THE TEACHER 65 

ing the devoted loyalty and passionate affection 
which she inspired in us, declared that her influence 
was inexplicable on natural grounds; that it actually 
bordered on the uncanny; that she possessed a kind 
of occult magnetism not to be resisted by those who 
came within its reach. But it was not so. Her 
power was only that which a great soul, full of the 
spirit of Christ, must ever wield over its fellows. 
It is the power which has made Miss Willard the 
organizer and leader of the womanhood of her time 
and the commanding figure of this century. 

Dr. Frank M. Bristol, pastor of Miss Willard's 
home church, in his farewell address to his congrega- 
tion on March 27, said: "Frances Willard taught 
me in the University, and she made the classroom 
seem like a flower bed." 

The story of Miss Willard's withdrawal from her 
work as Dean of the Woman's College and Professor 
of Esthetics in the Northwestern University is 
recorded in her own words. The spirit in which she 
took this step was commented upon in the address 
of President Henry Wade Rogers on the occasion 
of the commemorative service in Evanston, and 
tribute has been paid in this address to the wisdom 
of her course, the thoughtfulness and sincerity of 
her motives, and the sensitive conscientiousness of 
her attitude toward her colleagues from whom she 
was compelled to differ in regard to matters of 
administration. 

When Miss Willard introduced her self-govern- 



66 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

ment plan to her college girls, she tells us sne felt 
that she "was going into a garden planted out with 
beautiful maiden flowers." There were two thou- 
sand pupils whose young lives received the impress 
of such a teacher, their beloved Miss Willard, whose 
boundless faith and prophetic insight taught them 
in the wide fields of character and destiny how for 
themselves to discern excellence, how to live in 
their fellowships, not their prejudices; in brief, 
"How to Win." No wonder that her portraits 
adorn the schoolrooms of our republic throughout 
the land. 






CHAPTER V 

THE TRAVELER 

In the days of the Guilds no man could write 
himself "master" until, as "journeyman," he had 
traveled from city to city, from land to land, learn- 
ing whatever might be new and serviceable to him 
in the customs of his craft. When the time of his 
wandering was over, if he had been diligent and 
wise, he returned to his own land, no longer a mere 
workman, provincial in his art, but a master, with 
a world-wide training. 

Frances E. Willard, who was to be both mistress 
and teacher of the art of life, having already passed 
her apprenticeship of instruction and experimental 
practice, was now to wander in other lands, see life 
under other conditions, with other customs, study- 
ing its advantages and disadvantages, its helps and 
its hindrances, henceforth to look on it with cos- 
mopolitan eyes. 

All the gathered gain and fruitage of the past, 
the results of the ripe culture of its ages in art, 
music, literature, architecture, history — all this she 
strove to make her own. She worked and studied 
in every capital in Europe but one; she traveled 

67 



68 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

north into Finland, east to the banks of the Volga; 
she lived in Damascus, and spent some time in 
Palestine in the company of eminent scholars; she 
climbed the Pyramids, and went south till she could 
look over into Nubia and see in the sky above it 
the Southern Cross. 

In the course of this trip little escaped her dis- 
cerning taste. Give such a woman, with such 
capabilities, such an opportunity, and she will 
naturally make more of it than would a host with 
more limited vision. As the friend who was her 
daily companion through these years, herself a 
woman of more than ordinary perception, used to 
say : "I never knew how much we saw, or how much 
there was in what we saw, until Frank began to tell 
about it. Sometimes I likened her mind to the 
philosopher's stone. Common clay turned to gold 
at its touch." She was the proof of Charles Kings- 
ley's aphorism: "The eye sees only what it carries 
with it, the power of seeing." 

It was a great change in circumstances for the 
young woman who, not so many years before, stood 
in the barn door at old Forest Home and wailed: 
"Shall we ever go anywhere, or know anything, or 
see anybody!" but all seems to have come about as 
naturally as if it were nothing uncommon. As 
George Macdonald has said: "Not only is the 
impossible possible with God, but it is verra possible." 



THE TRAVELER 69 

The itinerary of these two pilgrims, Miss Willard 
and her friend, Miss Kate A. Jackson, is fascinating 
reading. Ireland, Scotland, England, France, Switz- 
erland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Poland, 
Germany, Belgium, Holland, the Rhine, Italy, 
Egypt, Palestine, Greece, Constantinople, the 
Danube, Hungary, Vienna, Paris, London, Paris 
again, are some of the headings. 

Throughout this period Miss Willard flung herself 
into the stream of its labors and enjoyments with that 
ardor and abandon to the moment, that concentra- 
tion of purpose upon the precise matter in hand, 
which was her happy characteristic all her life. She 
got out of each stage, as it came, all of which she was 
capable at the time. She was just as brave, as bright, 
and as half-shy, during this trip to Europe as she 
had been at home. She gives a diverting account of 
the "benumbing effect " upon her of the stately, 
black-coated array of waiters at the Lakes of 
Killarney. But the "benumbing effect" manifestly 
did not extend to her brain, for she accompanies the 
recital with one of the most charming and graceful 
descriptions of the beauty of the place ever penned. 

Miss Willard had always been responsive to the 
spontaneous music of nature. Now she had the 
great music of ages of human life also, to vibrate 
over heart and nerves. What must this have meant 
to one who, as a child, had kissed the old melodeon 



70 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

goodby, and who eight years before had written, 
"Five minutes of beautiful singing or playing will 
change my entire mental attitude," and, "No feeling 
ever comes to me so fraught with bitterness but one 
long steady look into the calm blue sky will cause it 
to melt away and disappear." 

The two women went almost everywhere. The 
stage and the stage-setting of the drama of history 
for centuries was before them, and they were well 
versed in history, not as a dry study held in memory 
alone, but as students who, in learning it, were so 
sympathetically disposed that they almost expe- 
rienced it as they read. For this perfect preparation 
Miss Willard had to thank her Aunt Sarah, a dra- 
matic teacher of history. The travelers climbed the 
Alps to study the serenity and poise of monastic life, 
and loved the human-eyed St. Bernard dogs of the 
friendly hospice. At London they tried athletic 
feats in the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, at least 
Miss Willard did. They went up the Nile in a 
steamer borrowed of the Pasha for the occasion. 
They perched on the broken columns of ancient 
temples, they faced with questioning woman-eyes 
the eternal woman, the Sphinx, most unknown to 
themselves, themselves part of her mystery. 

In Palestine they took no joy in pretended tombs 
and places, alien with the mixed breath of crowds, 
although they tried to "do" them dutifully. But 



THE TRAVELER 71 

as the day shut its doors they went out to the Mount 
of Olives, where our Lord prayed in the deepening 
silence, and the same stars looked down on them 
which looked on Him that night so long gone by, 
the same stars He had created. And they went to 
Bethany, the Lord's "home of rest," where lived 
those He loved, who loved Him; to Jordan, and 
Jericho, and the Dead Sea, where by some mis- 
chance of travel they found themselves with just 
ten minutes to stay; each place lived again in that 
clear-cut, imaginative life. 

In Greece their time was far too limited for their 
limitless desires. It was sufficiently long for them, 
however, not only to see the usual sights, but to 
search out a shallow, pebbly brook — perhaps the 
very brook through the cool stream of which Socrates 
walked barefoot that bright Athenian day — and 
following along its course to a solitary turn where the 
grass bank sloped gently and a single tall tree grew, 
there to sit down together in its shade and read their 
Phaedrus to the hum of the cicadae, and the stirring 
of the breeze, and the lisp of the brook around its 
stones; just as at Jerusalem they looked for a sight 
of the valley, now covered with gardens, where 
was the great single-arched bridge across which the 
Queen of Sheba advanced to meet King Solomon, 
and drawing out their Bible, re-read the story 
together. 



72 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

In Italy Miss Willard wrote: "I never dreamed 
in those lethargic years at home what a wide world 
it is, how full of misery." The swarming wretched- 
ness of it nearly broke her heart. In this grief also 
she turned to God, that omnipotent Love and 
Wisdom that had a right to create, and created; 
that Lord of Life "in Whom we live and move and 
have our being"; He who knows the end from the 
beginning, and had inexorably made us. "Let my 
soul calm itself, O God, in Thee!" she cried, again 
and again. But the maladministration, the love of 
dominion she found, aroused her soul to revolt and 
abhorrence. While her whole European trip seemed 
on the surface to be given up to culture for cultured 
sake, Miss Willard's journal indicates the constant 
trend of the deeper currents of her nature toward 
helping poor, battered humanity that must be lifted 
toward God. In Paris they studied in the College 
de France, and at the Sorbonne attended the lectures 
of Laboulaye and Guizot, Legouve Chasles, Franck, 
the historian, Chevalier, the political economist, and 
others, and were in the capital for the last time when 
the German armies began to gather their hostile 
lines closer about the great city. Before they left, 
they made a last pilgrimage to bid farewell to the 
Venus of Milo, before which Heine poured out the 
heart-break of endless separation. After an absence 
of two years and a half they were ready, even eager, 



THE TRAVELER 73 

to return home. Everywhere they had been wel- 
comed. Everywhere their hearts and minds had 
received profit. Great store they had laid by for 
the future years of growth and activity, when in the 
fall of 1870, they embarked for their own dear land. 
From Miss Willard's journals, faithfully kept 
throughout this eventful trip, we quote a section 
on Egypt. 

Egypt 
From a Yankee Schoolma'am's Point of View 

" I rode on, all alone, a mile or more, to Memnon's 
statue. You know the story, that in the magic of 
old, when the rays of the rising sun struck the 
statue, it gave forth sweetest music. Perhaps you 
do not know that the heroic name of Memnon does 
not rightfully belong to it, antiquarians having 
agreed that it is the statue of Amenophis, one of 
Egypt's ancient kings. But apart from these 
pitiless, prosaic facts, this is the most poetic piece 
of sculpture in existence, except the Sphinx. And 
here was I, riding alone and free over the plain of 
Thebes, and yonder sat the vocal statue on his 
solemn throne, just as he was sitting at this same 
hour — under these heavens — four thousand years 
ago. Another statue, twin to this, but probably 
some centuries less venerable, and not endowed with 
vocal gifts, is close beside it. It is a near relative 
(some say the uncle of its nephew, the vocal statue), 



74 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

and the profane Britishers christened the twain 
*Lord Dundreary and his brother Sam.' My 
donkey galloped nimbly around this dignified pair, 
while, quite oblivious of the less celebrated relative, 
I measured with long glances the awful height of 
Memnon. Mindful of the explanation some scien- 
tific men have given of the musical tradition, namely, 
that certain stones by a rearrangement of their 
particles under the influence of blows have been 
known to give forth harmonious sounds, I pelted 
the old patriarch with stones, but waked no such 
response as fancy's ear had often caught when I 
was far from Thebes. A lithe Arab, seeing my 
endeavor, climbed the statue's side and rapped 
away with some vigor upon the stone that lies across 
its knee, producing some faint show of resonance, 
but exigent imagination, as is its malicious custom, 
sneered at this attempt. I picked up some cubes of 
rich brown Nile mud, crystallized here since last 
the river shrank away from Memnon's feet, and the 
dozen Arabs who had crowded around me gathered 
leaves and blades of grass from the pedestal's base 
to offer me. Two really pretty girls of twelve 
smoothed my hand with their hard, slim fingers, 
and looked me over curiously — my broad-brimmed 
hat with its long white scarf, and my traveling dress 
of navy blue, being as strange to them as their 
ochre-stained fingers, grease-plastered hair, and 



THE TRAVELER 75 

three rings in each ear were to me. Another 
girl passed by as I sat there in reverie, with a mud 
tray upon her head containing cakes of mingled straw 
and manure — the only fuel of these poor people, and 
generator of the vermin which swarm in their 
miserable villages. 

" This sight brought me back through two-thirds 
of the world's lifetime, and set me thinking about the 
present state of the Egyptian race — a subject the 
most painful I have ever contemplated. Especially 
does the awful degradation and oppression of women, 
which is its cause here, distress me. When will the 
stronger member of the human family in every land 
discover that if he uses his more muscular arm to 
hold down to the earth the weaker member, he is 
putting the knife to his own breast — signing the 
death-warrant of his own manhood? That two and 
two make four is not more capable of demonstration 
than that in every age and country woman has been 
the stone around man's neck to sink him to the 
lowest depths or the winged angel to help him to 
the purest heights that he has ever won. And away 
there toward the sunset, beyond the mystic Nile, 
the yellow sand, the wash of blue waves, is the 
land where man has grown free enough, wise enough, 
brave enough, to let woman be just what she can 
become without his uninspired restriction — the 
land where man has withdrawn his own in favor of 



76 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

his Maker's 'thus far, and no farther/ Involun- 
tarily I turned toward the inspiring west, and rode 
around full of thoughts and hopes and purposes. 

"How can I give some idea of the Temple of 
Jupiter Ammon, at Karnak ? Suffice it for my modest 
pages to relate, concerning the most stupendous 
ruins in the world, that they quite 'fill the eye of 
fancy' — nay, even oppress that airy orb, such is 
their ponderous magnitude. Tracing their plan 
like that of all Egyptian temples (for these people, 
more than any other, believed in the virtue of what 
the wisest of all critics called 'vain repetition'), 
we passed in one afternoon through nearly three 
thousand years of human history and toil — for 
such is the gulf that separated Ousertesen, the pro- 
jector, from Ptolemy-Alexander, the last restorer 
of the temple. Under such a weight of time and 
beneath such masses of architecture as these, the 
mind feels oppressed, and struggles vainly to grapple 
with the abstract idea of duration, and the concrete 
idea of columns, capitals, and crumbling walls, that 
seem as if the Titans only could have reared them. 

"We looked from the lofty masses of architecture 
to the slim-legged Arabs crouched on fragments of 
rock below, and felt more than ever that they be- 
longed to a degenerate race. If not, then a single 
despot soul like that of Rameses II. must have 
wielded a million bodies like these as we control the 



THE TRAVELER 77 

members of our own. A horrid thought this, 
heavier upon the heart than all these piled-up stones. 
Never does one get the impression of * man's inhu- 
manity to man ' so deeply graven on his spirit as in 
this land, the tyranny of whose kings has made it 
accursed of God. 

"The king is the one figure of supreme prominence, 
carved upon all these noble columns and minutely 
sculptured walls. He stands proudly erect, in his 
chariot; he draws his bow victoriously against his 
foes, and tramples them down under his chariot 
wheels; contemplates with serene triumph their 
severed heads and hands piled up before him by his 
warriors, and offers as chief among equals such 
trophies, human or otherwise, as please him, to the 
gods. A sweet-smelling savor are these to the hawk- 
headed, jackal-headed, and crocodile-headed mon- 
sters whom the Egyptians worshiped, and who alone 
dispute pictorial honors with the sovereign. Not a 
touch of pity, not a hand of helpfulness, not a hint 
of charity, relieves the bitter gloom that broods 
over these splendid carvings of the greatest temple 
ever reared by man, and the heart turns wearily 
away while the eye seeks those smiling heavens that 
bend in changeless love over our poor world in its 
stormful career, and comfort comes from thought of 
Him who reigns there, and, late or early, blots out 
the very memory of the vile oppressors of our race. 



78 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

1 The mills of God grind slowly, 
But they grind exceeding small,' 

I murmured with deep satisfaction, as my donkey 
trotted homeward over the pavement of stones, 
crumbled to powder, but which once had helped to 
make Sesostris' pride. 

" I will close this paper by a description of Karnak 
by moonlight: 

" Our kind friend, the interpreter, who had taken us 
lately, by a sort of tacit consent, under his care, 
produced for me the very cream of all donkeys for 
this evening's excursion, borrowing her from his 
especial friend, the 'chief of police' at Luxor. So 
it fell out that, while Semiramis ambled along tran- 
quilly, attended by her unfailing escort, the inter- 
preter, I galloped on alone, my swift-footed lad of 
the previous excursions dancing attendance behind 
me. That half-hour's ride from Luxor over the 
plain to Karnak — most stupendous of all the The- 
ban ruins — I shall never forget. It was the cul- 
mination of all the East can yield. 

" Above me were new heavens. In the frame of a 
violet sky hung constellations I had never seen 
before — their palpitating globes of gold recalled 
the fruit- waving trees of the Hesperides. And dear, 
familiar stars were there, only in places very different 
from those they occupied ' in the infinite meadows of 
heaven,' that bent above my home. The Dipper 



THE TRAVELER 79 

lay on the horizon's rim, tipped wrong side up; the 
Pleiades had climbed far up toward the zenith; and 
the changeless face of the North Star was hard to 
recognize amid surroundings so unusual. Around 
me was a new earth. The sandy plain stretched 
away into the purple darkness, full of attractive 
mystery. Far off gleamed the firefly lamps of a 
straggling Arab village, and on the cool, invigorating 
breeze, which had succeeded to the day's stifling 
heat, came the lonesome bark of dogs and jackals, so 
characteristic of the East. 

" I rode beneath a grove of palm trees, magnificent 
in stature, and of a symmetry unequaled by any 
others ever seen. The shadows that they cast, like 
mosaics in the moonlight, I could compare to 
nothing but an emblazoned shield. The white wall 
and graceful dome of a sheik's tomb gleamed through 
the trees and for a moment deepened the lacework 
of their shadows. I rode along the ruined avenue 
of sphinxes that once extended over the mile that 
separates the temple at Luxor from that of Zamah. 
How still it was, and how significant that stillness 
in the highway through which, for two thousand 
years and more, all that was rarest and most royal 
in the wide earth had proudly passed — processions 
of kings and priests and captives, compared with 
which those of the Greeks were as the sport of 
children ; and this ere Romulus laid the first stone of 



80 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

his far-famed wall, or iEneas fretted the blue waves 
of the Mgesm with his adventurous prow. The 
pride and glory of a world had here its center ere 
Cadmus brought letters into Greece or Jacob saw 
his wondrous vision on the Judean plains. How 
insignificant is that dramatic justice which lends 
the charm to romance, compared with the visible 
hand of vengeance with which a merciful God who 
loves the creatures He has made has smitten this 
stronghold of cruelty — wrenched from their lofty 
places the statues of bloodthirsty tyrants, and sent 
the balm of moonlight drifting through the shattered 
walls, and mellowing the fallen columns where once 
* power dwelt among her passions.' 

" We sat upon a broken pedestal in the great court 
of the temple and let the wondrous lesson of the 
place fall on our hearts. One isolated column, the 
last remaining fragment of a stately colonnade, 
outlined itself against the liquid sky. Its white 
shaft was brilliant in the moonlight, and its broad 
capital, corolla-shaped like the lotus flower, held far 
aloft, like a lily's cup uplifted for the dew. Beyond 
was the shattered propylon, once gay with the 
banners of Isis and Osiris, but frowning now like the 
bastion of a fortress; while still beyond, an ava- 
lanche of fallen rocks showed where ruin had struck 
the Temple of Jupiter Ammon its blow of doom. 

" More distant still was the forest of columns which 



THE TRAVELER 81 

has been the wonder of all travelers — unequaled in 
its kind by any work of man. It numbers one 
hundred thirty-four pillars, seventy feet in height 
and thirty-five in circumference (or about eleven feet 
thick), covered from base to abacus with carefully 
wrought sculptures, brilliantly colored in their palmy 
days. A single one among these massive pillars 
had been wrested from the foundation, and leaned 
heavily, with its huge architecture, against its neigh- 
bor, perhaps the most mournfully significant column 
that human hands had ever carved from stone and 
left to the slow canceration of time and ruin. 

"Last of all, at the end of this long vista which 
comprises twenty-eight centuries of human history, 
gleamed the tapering finger of the largest obelisk 
in Egypt, as fresh and clear-cut in its outline as on 
the day the chisel left it — the chisel held by a 
nameless artisan who had become a mummy before 
Phidias had reared the Parthenon or Zeuxis and 
Appelles commenced their rivalries. Against this 
obelisk leaned an old Arab in voluminous white 
turban, and at its base were seated several others, 
all by their costumes and their bearing as perfectly 
in harmony with the scene as human accessories 
could be, and lending to it a strange charm as the 
mind reverts to those who reared this temple, and 
contrasts with theirs the insignificant achievements 
of their descendants. 



82 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

" In that far-off realm of our endless life shall we 
some day meet these mighty builders whose work we 
contemplate under these moonlit heavens? What a 
thought is that, that in this changeful round of 
being we shall encounter somewhere, some day, the 
awful king Sesostris, the witching Cleopatra, the 
Pharaoh overwhelmed in the revengeful sea. 

" But hark ! They have arrived, the four and forty 
whom we call 'the others.' In phalanx close they 
ride through the vast courts, among the hundred 
pillars; some with cigars in mouth, others in lively 
conversation, and all at a brisk trot. One jolly 
young Englishman fires off a pistol two paces from 
us, at the base of the lone pillar with the capital of 
lotus flower. 

"Our donkey boys accumulate; their shrill voices 
pierce the ruined temple through and through; their 
offers of a porcelain scarabseus, a glass sphinx, a 
scrap of papyrus, a chip of mummy case, become 
vociferous. We climb with much alacrity upon our 
donkeys and hurriedly gallop back across the wide 
and pleasant plain to our steamer at Luxor." 




REST COTTAGE 



CHAPTER VI 
THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 

Upon the summits of lofty mountain ranges which 
serve as the great watersheds of our country, the 
merest apparent accident — as a puff of wind or 
the encountering of a chance resistant force in tree 
or shrub — determines whether a particular rain- 
drop shall lend itself to the streams which flow 
eastward, or whether it shall become a part of the 
mighty waters which sweep toward west or south. 
It is an old figure and yet one which comes con- 
tinually to mind in considering the crowning epoch 
in the life of Frances E. Willard. 

Who would have prophesied in 1874 that Miss 
Willard was to be the leader of the women's tem- 
perance movement in America? Dean of the 
Northwestern Female College and Professor of 
Esthetics in the Northwestern University, in her 
were embodied much of nineteenth century civiliza- 
tion and culture. The Shakespeare and the musical 
clubs knew her, as did meetings for the discussion 
of Oriental and Greek thought and all the delightful 
dominating external culture of the mind of the day. 
She was admired by the great, loved where love 

83 



84 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

was a pride. Leading, active, regnant, she may have 
seemed in danger of being forever bound by outward 
success and applause. But God had long before 
planted in her soul in abundant measure a store of 
vital, childlike love and worship to remain there as 
a germ capable of responding to the loving warmth 
of His own radiant energy whenever the hour of 
the heart's springtime should come. She herself 
has quoted George Meredith's saying, "A check to 
the pride of a boy will frequently divert him to the 
paths where lie his subtlest powers," adding with 
winsome humor, "and girls are sometimes very 
boyish." 

God had larger purposes for her than she knew, 
and as she approached the widening yet lonely path 
of philanthropy up which she was to toil, He gently 
and wisely prepared her for the change by opening 
in her thoughts new channels of interest in which all 
the currents of her life were soon to flow with a 
deeper, purer, stronger tide than the old channels 
had ever known. It was the year of the Woman's 
Temperance Crusade; there had been no unusual 
activity in temperance circles, but suddenly, without 
warning, the crusade began. As if by magic, armies 
of women — delicate, cultured, home women — 
filled the streets of the cities and towns of Ohio, 
going in pathetic procession from the door of the 
home to that of the saloon, singing, praying, plead- 



THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 85 

ing with the rumsellers with all the eloquence of 
their mother-hearts. The movement ran like wild- 
fire over the land, breaking out here, there, and 
everywhere without known concert of action. "It 
was like the fires we used to kindle on the western 
prairies," Miss Willard said; "a match and a wisp 
of dry grass were all that were needed, and behold 
the magnificent spectacle of a prairie on fire sweeping 
across the landscape, swift as a thousand untrained 
steeds and no more to be captured than a hurricane.' ' 
All this could not fail to arouse Miss Willard's 
attention. She was moved to help, although 
she might not leave her own place to do it. All 
through this battle of "Home versus Saloon," she 
read every word she could find about "that whirl- 
wind of the Lord which in fifty days swept the liquor 
traffic out of two hundred and fifty towns and 
villages." She took pains to let her sentiments and 
her sympathies be widely known, giving to her pupils 
in rhetoric such novel essay themes as "John B. 
Gough," "Neal Dow," and "Does Prohibition 
Prohibit?" 

Her brother, Oliver A. Willard, then editor of the 
Chicago Evening Mail, gave favorable and full 
reports of the Crusading bands, saying privately 
to his sister, "I shall speak just as well of the women 
as I dare to" — "a most characteristic editorial 
remark, though more frequently acted out than 



86 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

uttered.' ' And to the young Dean came this 
illumination: "It occurred to me, strange to say, 
for the first time, that I ought to work for the good 
cause just where I was — that everybody ought. 
Thus I first received * the arrest of thought* concern- 
ing which, in a thousand different towns, I have since 
then tried to speak, and I believe that in this simple 
change of personal attitude, from passive to aggres- 
sive, lies the only force that can free this land from 
the drink habit and the liquor traffic. It would be 
like dynamite under the saloon if just where he is, 
the minister would begin active work against it; 
if just where he is, the teacher would instruct his 
pupils; if just where he is, the voter would dedicate 
his ballot to this movement; and so on, through the 
shining ranks of the great powers that make for 
righteousness, from father and mother to kinder- 
garten toddlers, if each were this day doing what 
each could just where he is." 

The wave of the Crusade struck Chicago. A band 
of women visited the City Council to petition for 
enforcement of the Sunday-closing law. They were 
treated with mocking slight and rudely jostled on 
the street by a band of rough men, half out for a 
lark, half ugly. This was in March, 1874. Miss 
Willard was thoroughly aroused. "Treat any 
woman with contumely, and as soon as she hears of 
it every other woman in the world worth anything 






THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 87 

feels as if she also were hurt." Busy as she was, it 
was not many days before she found time publicly 
to declare this as "everybody's war," and to assure 
the temperance women she was with them heart 
and mind and hand. She made a second speech, 
and a third, so successfully that she was in demand at 
temperance gatherings. Her heart warmed to the 
work. "To serve such a cause would be utterly 
enthralling," she exclaimed, "if I only had more 
time — if I were more free ! " Within three months 
she was free, perfectly free, to choose, to do, or to 
leave undone, to continue work along her own lines 
or to go into the new temperance field, differences 
of opinion between herself and the President of the 
University on matters of government having led to 
her resignation from the position of Dean of the 
Woman's College. In the sleepless night that fol- 
lowed there came a heavenly vision to which she 
was not disobedient, bringing to her soul the tranquil 
knowledge that "the Lord is real, His whole nature 
is Love." 

Miss Willard's interest in the Crusade soon carried 
her to the East to study the temperance movement 
and to confer with its leaders in New York City, 
Boston, and Portland. She went down into the 
slums of New York, saw their mission temperance 
work, and there the fire of pity, that never left her, 
was kindled in her soul for the physical and mental 



88 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

misery that intemperance causes among the poor. 
She attended the first Gospel temperance camp 
meeting known in temperance annals, at Old Or- 
chard, Maine, listened to the story of the "Maine 
Law'* from the lips of General Neal Dow, and for 
the first time met Mrs. Lillian M. N. Stevens, of 
Portland, who became her strong and dependable 
coadjutor and then her successor. It was in a 
Portland hotel, while she wondered where money 
was to come from to meet her own and her mother's 
expenses, that she opened the Bible lying on the 
table and read the verse that "clinched her faith for 
this difficult emergency ,, : "Trust in the Lord and 
do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily 
thou shalt be fed." 

Going to Boston for further counsel and bending 
all her energies to find "where to stand within the 
charmed circle of the temperance reform," she waited 
and watched for providential intimations. Mean- 
while many and varied offers came from the edu- 
cational field, tempting in respect to their wide out- 
look and large promise of financial relief. "In this 
dilemma," so we read her record, "I consulted my 
friends as to their sense of my duty. Every one of 
them, including my dear mother and my revered 

counselor, Bishop S , united in the decision that 

he thus expressed: 'If you were not dependent on 
your own exertions for the supply of current needs 



THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 89 

I would say be a philanthropist, but of all work the 
temperance work pays least and you cannot afford 
to take it up. I therefore counsel you to remain in 
your chosen and successful field of the higher educa- 
tion.'" "No one," she continues, "stood by me in 
the preference I freely expressed to join the crusade 
women except Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, who sent 
me a letter full of enthusiasm for the new line of 
work and predicted success for me therein." 

While visiting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
Miss Willard received two letters on the same day. 
The first was from Rev. Dr. Van Norman, of New 
York City, offering her the position of Lady Prin- 
cipal of his elegant school for young women, with a 
salary of $2,400 and such duties as she might choose. 
The other was from Mrs. Louise S. Rounds, of 
Chicago, begging her to take the presidency of the 
Chicago branch of the Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Union, while she confessed its present weak- 
ness of organization and its financial inadequacy. 
"It has come to me," said Mrs. Rounds, "as I 
believe from the Lord, that you ought to be our 
president." Our temperance Greatheart did not 
hesitate; the offer of Dr. Van Norman was declined, 
that of Mrs. Rounds accepted. This was the real 
election of Frances E. Willard's life — this was her 
choice of a career. 

"No words can adequately characterize the change 



90 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

wrought in my life by this decision, " wrote our 
leader. "Instead of peace, I was to participate in 
war; instead of the sweetness of home, never more 
dearly loved than I had loved it, I was to become a 
wanderer on the face of the earth; instead of libraries, 
I was to frequent public halls and railway cars; 
instead of scholarly and cultured men, I was to see 
the dregs of saloon and gambling house and haunt of 
shame. But women who were among the fittest 
Gospel survivals were to be my comrades; little 
children were to be gathered from near and from far 
in the Loyal Temperance Legion, and whoever keeps 
such company should sing a psalm of joy, solemn as 
it is sweet. Hence I have felt that great promotion 
came to me when I was counted worthy to be a 
worker in the organized Crusade for * God and Home 
and Native Land.' Temporary differences may 
seem to separate some of us for a while, but I believe 
with all my heart that farther on we shall be found 
walking once more side by side." 

On her homeward journey the heaven-born leader 
of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union was to 
receive her Crusade baptism. It was in Pittsburg. 
Miss Willard's vivid description of the scene 
tells us: 

The Crusade had lingered in this dim-colored 
city well-nigh a year, and when I visited my old 
friends at the Female College I spoke of it with 



THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 91 

enthusiasm, and of the women who were, as I judged 
from a morning paper, still engaged in it here. They 
looked upon me with astonishment when I proposed 
to seek out those women and go with them to the 
saloons; but, too polite to disappoint me, they had me 
piloted by some of the factotums of the place to the 
headquarters of the Crusade. Here I was warmly 
welcomed, and soon found myself walking down 
street arm in arm with a young teacher from the 
public school, who said she had a habit of coming in 
to add one to the procession when her day's duties 
were over. 

We paused in front of Sheffner's saloon, on 
Market street. The ladies ranged themselves along 
the curbstone, for they had been forbidden in any- 
wise to incommode the passers-by, being dealt with 
much more strictly than a drunken man or a heap 
of dry-goods boxes would be. At a signal from our 
gray-haired leader, a sweet- voiced woman began to 
sing, "Jesus the water of life will give, " all our voices 
soon blending in the song. I think it was the most 
novel spectacle that I recall. There stood women of 
undoubted religious devotion and the highest charac- 
ter, most of them crowned with the glory of gray 
hairs. Along the stony pavement of that stoniest 
of cities rumbled the heavy wagons, many of them 
carriers of beer; between us and the saloon in front of 
which we were drawn up in line, passed the motley 
throng, almost every man lifting his hat, and even 
little newsboys doing the same. It was American 
manhood's tribute to Christianity and to woman- 
hood, and it was significant and full of pathos. The 
leader had already asked the saloonkeeper if we 



92 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

might enter, and he had declined, else the prayer 
meeting would have occurred inside his door. A 
sorrowful old lady, whose only son had gone to ruin 
through that very death-trap, knelt on the cold, 
moist pavement and offered a broken-hearted prayer, 
while all our heads were bowed. 

At a signal we moved on, and the next saloon- 
keeper permitted us to enter. I had no more idea 
of the inward appearance of a saloon than if there 
had been no such place on earth. I knew nothing 
of its high, heavily corniced bar, its barrels with the 
ends all pointed toward the looker-on, each barrel 
being furnished with a faucet; its shelves glittering 
with decanters and cut glass, its floors thickly strewn 
with sawdust, and here and there a table with chairs 
— nor of its abundant fumes, sickening to healthy 
nostrils. The tall, stately lady who led us, placed 
her Bible on the bar and read a psalm, whether 
hortatory or imprecatory I do not remember, but 
the spirit of these Crusaders was so gentle I think it 
must have been the former. Then we sang "Rock of 
Ages" as I thought I had never heard it sung before, 
with a tender confidence to the height of which one 
does not rise in the easy-going, regulation prayer 
meeting, and then one of the older women whispered 
to me softly that the leader wished to know if I 
would pray. It was strange, perhaps, but I felt not 
the least reluctance as I knelt on the sawdust floor, 
with a group of earnest hearts around me, and behind 
them, filling every corner and extending out into the 
street, a crowd of unwashed, unkempt, hard-looking 
drinking men. I was conscious that perhaps never 
in my life, save beside my sister Mary's dying bed, 



THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 93 

had I prayed as truly as I did then. This was my 
Crusade baptism. The next day I went on to the 
West, and within a week had been made president 
of the Chicago Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union. 

The story of Miss Willard's early Chicago work 
reads like a romance. Into it she flung herself with 
the ardor of a St. Francis d'Assisi. She made the 
little great, the weak a power. She who had studied 
books, now studied humanity. Delighting in music 
and in art, she gave herself with abandon to scenes 
the world would consider the reverse of artistic. 
Once she said to a friend who lamented that she had 
relinquished the study of art, "What greater art 
than to try to restore the image of God to faces that 
have lost it?" For music she now had Gospel 
hymns, not always rendered effectively from the 
standpoint of the musical critic, but no grand 
oratorio could have thrilled her soul as did those 
hymns sung by men upon whose lips the praises of 
God were like the unaccustomed lispings of babes. 
Nor was it ease or the prompting of cultured taste 
alone which Frances Willard sacrificed; she endured 
real hardship, the prosaic hardship of poverty, and 
even at times of hunger. So determined was she in 
her heroic soul to be led of God alone that she would 
not suffer the women of the Union to speak of com- 
pensation, and they, thinking that in some unknown 



94 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

way abundant means were supplied her, accepted her 
service all unmindful of the fact that the slender 
figure which stood before them day after day had 
often walked many miles because she did not possess 
the "prerequisite nickel for car fare," or that she 
came to them hungry because she had no money 
with which to buy bread. 

When Madam Willard's common sense prevailed 
and the situation was revealed, their regret partook 
almost of the nature of remorse, and a modest but 
adequate salary was immediately provided. When 
persuaded that her position was no longer tenable, 
Miss Willard did not regret the experience of those 
months, which gave her an insight into human hearts 
and a revelation of human needs. Often as she went 
about the great city, searching for the friendless and 
forgotten, she had said to herself, "I am a better 
friend than you dream; I know more about you than 
you think, for, bless God, I am hungry too." Thus 
early in her temperance career we catch the blended 
strains of tender sympathy and resolute determina- 
tion, the strong notes of the harmony that rang 
through all her after life. 

From the outset of her Chicago work it was ap- 
parent that a wider sphere was awaiting her, and 
when the organizing convention of the Illinois 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union was held in 
Springfield in October, 1874, she was elected to the 
office of corresponding secretary. In August of the 



THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 95 

same year there had gone forth from Chautauqua, 
New York, a call to the women who had been in- 
terested in the Woman's Temperance Crusade to 
meet at Cleveland, Ohio, November 18-20, for the 
purpose of effecting a permanent national organiza- 
tion. Thither went Frances Willard to clasp hands 
with those whose very names had thrilled her heart 
as she had read of their brave warfare for the protec- 
tion of the home. They recognized in her a most 
valuable ally, and she was placed upon the Committee 
on Resolutions, one of the most important positions 
within the gift of the convention. In this capacity 
she wrote the famous resolution which was in its 
essence her own spirit and the ruling principle of 
her life : 

Resolved, That, recognizing that our cause is and 
will be combated by mighty, determined and re- 
lentless foes, we will, trusting in Him who is Prince 
of Peace, meet argument with argument, misjudg- 
ment with patience, denunciation with kindness, and 
all our difficulties and dangers with prayer. 

Although Miss Willard had been elected to the 
office of corresponding secretary, she might without 
doubt have been made president had she not prompt- 
ly refused to have her name used, saying that she 
preferred to learn of those who were veterans in this 
warfare rather than assume for herself a position of 
such responsibility. 



96 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

Within a few brief months after her choice of a 
career we find Miss Willard's guiding hand upon 
three distinctively important positions in local, 
state, and national unions. Her history in those 
days made itself with startling rapidity. When once 
the hour had found the woman it was as if she had 
been from the beginning of her life filling the place, 
her fitness for which was so universally recognized. 
Five years later, in 1879, she was elected to the 
presidency of the National Union, and her every 
heart-beat was from that day given to the best 
interests of the organization which was far dearer 
to her than life itself. Indeed, the National Union 
was bounded by the compass of her great thought, 
warmed by the sunshine of her all-embracing love 
and nourished by her very life-blood. Rarely has 
the world seen so complete a death of self, so far 
as personal aims are concerned, or so glorious a 
resurrection of the true self in the lives of countless 
others. 

While corresponding secretary of the National 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union, in the winter 
of 1877, Miss Willard went to Boston by invitation 
of Dwight L. Moody, to conduct daily meetings for 
women in connection with his revival services, and 
for three memorable months the Gospel according 
to "Saint Frances' ' was the magnet for mother- 
hearted women, young and old, who crowded 



THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 97 

Berkeley street, Park street, and Clarendon street 
churches, giving sisterly help to the young leader, 
and learning as never before the meaning of the Love 
that never faileth and of "that light which lighteth 
every man that cometh into the world." And not 
alone were women's hearts warmed and uplifted by 
the glow and enthusiasm fresh from the spirit of this 
woman evangel, for to many a manly heart was 
revealed through her the truth that there is neither 
male nor female in Christ Jesus. 

On the fly-leaf of the Bible Miss Willard studied 
during these "Boston days," presented to her by the 
Central Woman's Christian Temperance Union, of 
Chicago, at a farewell reception in Farwell Hall, we 
find this entry : " My first whole day of real, spiritual, 
joyful, loving study of the kernel of God's word, 
simply desirous to learn my Father's will, is this 
17th of February, 1877, with the Boston work just 
begun. And on this sweet, eventful day, in which, 
with every hour of study, the Bible has grown dearer, 
I take as my life-motto henceforth, humbly asking 
God's grace that I may measure up to it, this wonder- 
ful passage from Paul: 'And whatsoever ye do in 
word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, 
giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.' 
Col. 3:17." 

"Sweet, eventful day" to her, and its anniversary, 
twenty-one years later, was to witness "the sad 



98 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

hour selected from all years" — nay, the glad hour 

when her soul 

"Began to beckon like a star 
From the abode where the eternal are." 

In March, 1878, her brother Oliver, of whose great 
gifts and genial nature Miss Willard could never 
say enough, suddenly passed away, and the editor- 
ship of his paper, the Chicago Evening Post, was for 
many weeks bravely carried by Miss Willard and 
her intrepid sister-in-law. 

A multitude of memories grave and gay overwhelm 
one who attempts to chronicle Miss Willard's life 
in its years of white-ribbon leadership: the pioneer 
work in the far West, the visits to every province 
of Canada, the campaigns for constitutional amend- 
ments in various states, constructive work for the 
World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union and 
the International Council of Women, the writing 
of six or eight books in addition to an autobiography, 
the editorship of The Union Signal, the presentation 
of Mrs. Hayes' portrait to the White House, and 
heroic work for enterprises affiliated at that time 
with the National Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union. Yet these are not a tithe of the interests that, 
in addition to continuous public speaking and inces- 
sant correspondence, pressed their claims upon a 
heart that was always "at leisure from itself, to 
soothe and sympathize." 



THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 99 

In October, 1887, the Rock River, Illinois, Con- 
ference of the Methodist Episcopal Church elected 
Miss Willard a delegate to the General Conference 
to meet in New York City, thus making her one of 
the first five women elected to the great Quadrennial. 

In Miss Willard 's autobiography, "Glimpses of 
Fifty Years," she tells us that nothing could exceed 
her surprise when she learned that the Bishops had 
prejudged the entire case in their opening address. 
The Conference voted against seating the women 
delegates, although the champions of equality made 
a splendid record, of which they will be prouder with 
each added year. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 

(Continued) 

As an organizer Miss Willard possessed rare 
powers of discernment, and a still more rare mag- 
netism. Like the "Ancient Mariner," she could 
have said: 

"Whenever that his face I see, 
I know the man who must hear me — 
To him I tell my tale"; 

only the message was primarily to woman, because 
she saw that the interests of the home, of childhood, 
of a purer manhood, were bound up in the elevation 
of women, not because she made the mistake of 
which she accused the author of "Getting On in the 
World," namely, "squinting at humanity and seeing 
only half of it." She saw the real significance of the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union. In the new 
society she saw the first attempt to unite women into 
an organization which should make the influence of 
womanhood an appreciable power in the world. 
She saw that the army called into existence by the 
ravages of the saloon upon the home could, with 
proper leadership, be arrayed likewise against every 

100 




PRESIDENT NATIONAL WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN 
TEMPERANCE UNION 



THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 101 

other evil which threatens the home and strikes at 
our civilization. She saw in it, too, a great educa- 
tional agency for women, and this ideal gave strength 
and courage for the ceaseless journeyings, difficult 
and distant, which were to mark the next ten years 
of her life. Almost immediately upon her election 
to the national presidency she began that wonderful 
tour which was not to end until she had spoken in 
every city and town of ten thousand inhabitants 
in the United States, and in many of smaller size. 
In 1883 she traveled 30,000 miles, visiting every 
state and territory, speaking in the capital cities 
of all save Idaho and Arizona. During a dozen 
years she averaged one meeting a day, and only six 
weeks in a year for mother-love and home. Such toil 
seems superhuman when one takes into account the 
fact that the weary journeys were never allowed to 
interrupt the constant flow of thought and work. 
To Miss Willard a railway train became for the time 
being only another Rest Cottage workshop, and the 
busy fingers were constantly flying over her writing 
tablet as the train sped on its swift way. Some of 
her most inspired and inspiring utterances were 
given to the world under these conditions. 

She seldom turned aside for sight-seeing. A trip 
to Yellowstone Park was relinquished because she 
found that thus one more point could be visited and 
one more Union organized. The goal of her conse- 



102 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

crated ambition was a universal sisterhood united 
in a common cause, and she was deaf to all sounds 
and blind to all sights which might lure her from 
that goal. She aroused in the women who rallied 
to her call not alone a deep love and devotion to 
herself, but a new faith in their own possibilities 
and a new hope for the race of which she was a part. 
One cultured Southern woman, who later occupied 
a prominent position in national work, has said: 
"The first time I heard her I lay awake all night for 
sheer gladness. It was such a wonderful revelation 
to me that a woman like Miss Willard could exist. 
I thanked God and took courage for humanity.' ' 
That same courage has been breathed into unnum- 
bered lives. Women, "seeing her faith," have had 
a like faith kindled in their own hearts — a faith not 
alone in their individual ability, but in the power 
of an organized womanhood. No wonder that 
Unions, state and local, sprang up like magic wher- 
ever her feet trod. She brought to each woman that 
most mighty of cohesive forces, mingled faith and 
love. 

By far the larger number of state and territorial 
Unions in the South and in the far West call Miss 
Willard mother. Her first trip through the Southern 
States marks an epoch in history. "It was the first 
ray of hope that had come into our lives since the 
war," said one gentle woman of the "solid South." 



THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 103 

"We had been sitting dumb and crushed amid the 
wreckage of our past, and it seemed as if there were 
no future for us; but Miss Willard came and held 
out to us that little white hand, and its clasp gave 
us new heart and new hope. She made the white 
ribbon God's olive branch of peace." 

Bishop Stevens, who, as Colonel Stevens, com- 
manded the battery that fired the first shot on Fort 
Sumter, introduced Miss Willard to her first South- 
ern audience in Charleston, saying, "This woman, 
this Northern woman, this Northern temperance 
woman, brings us the magic initials W. C. T. U. 
Shall we not interpret them in our case to mean, 
We Come To Unite the North and the South, and We 
Come To Upset the liquor traffic ? ' ' The truth of this 
prophetic utterance was seen at the next National 
Convention, in Washington, D. C, when Southern 
women for the first time sat side by side with their 
Northern sisters, saying to the beloved president of 
them all, "We have enlisted with you to wage a 
peaceful war for God and Home and Native Land." 

Miss Willard was essentially a harmonizer, loving 
peace with a love so deep that she would make any 
concession, except one of principle, to maintain it. 
Her power to organize was pre-eminent, for the 
organizer, the constructionist, must always be a man 
or a woman of peace. Yet her love of peace never took 
the form of cowardly inertia. She could wage most 



104 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

vigorous warfare and prove herself, whenever war 
seemed necessary, a sternly uncompromising foe. 
With a nature strong yet gentle, firm yet pliable, 
it may be seen why she effected the largest organiza- 
tion of women the world ever has known. 

Miss Willard disproved Goethe's statement that 
women are ever isolated, ever work alone, and as a 
suffrage leader in Massachusetts has said, "She has 
shown how they may be brought together in a 
mighty force which, wisely directed, may revolution- 
ize the world." Whittier well summed up her life 
work in these memorable lines: 

" She knew the power of banded ill, 
But felt that love was stronger still, 
And organized for doing good 
The world's united womanhood." 

Miss Willard's genius for organizing individuals 
is written upon every page of the history of the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union. In her 
own words: 

Alone we can do little. Separated, we are the 
units of weakness, but aggregated, we become 
batteries of power. Agitate, educate, organize 
— these are the deathless watchwords of success. 
The fingers of the hand can do little alone, 
but, correlated into a fist, they become formidable. 
The plank borne here and there by the sport of the 
wave is an image of imbecility, but frame a thousand 
planks of heart of oak into a hull, put in your engine 



THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 105 

with its heart of fire, fit out your ship, and it shall 
cross at a right angle those same waves to the port 
it has purposed to attain. We want all those like- 
minded with us, who would put down the dramshop, 
exalt the home, redeem manhood, and uplift woman- 
hood, to join hands with us for organized work 
according to a plan. It took the allied armies to 
win at Waterloo, and the alcohol Napoleon will 
capitulate to a no less mighty army. 

It is the way commerce has marched across the 
continents and captured them for civilization — one 
by one; it is the way an army is recruited — one by 
one; it is the way Christ's Church is built up into 
power, and heaven adds to its souls redeemed — 
just one by one. 

Women of the Church, the Home, the School, 
will you not rally to the holy call of individual re- 
sponsibility and systematically united effort? — 

" For the cause that lacks assistance, 
For the wrong that needs resistance, 
For the future in the distance, 
And the good that you can do! " 

The human biped is a timid creature, who loves 
to march in platoons rather than to strike out swiftly 
and alone; but he carries a jewel behind the forehead, 
and is, therefore, the single sentient creature con- 
cerning whom there is hope. You can change his 
opinions though they are bone of his bone, flesh of 
his flesh, and dearer to him than his own right eye. 
There are forces that can disintegrate from the 
igneous rocks of his prejudice the broader stratifica- 
tions of kindlier custom and more righteous law. 
What with "line upon line, precept upon precept, 



106 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

here a little and there a little" of persuasion founded 
upon justice, the work is done. 

In the morning of its life every movement for 
man's elevation shines out with a light like that of 
Rembrandt's pictures, narrow, but intense. As the 
day deepens, the light becomes like that in Raphael's 
pictures, broad and all-comprehending. So it is 
with Christianity, and so, as white-ribboners stead- 
fastly believe, it will be with that great temperance 
reform which was born of the Gospel, and which has 
been designated by that intrepid leader, Lady Henry 
Somerset, as "an embodied prayer.' 

He who climbs, sees. Poets tell us of 

"The one far-off, divine event, 
Toward which the whole creation moves," 

and in this mighty movement toward the power that 
organization only can bestow, what end have we 
in view? Is it fame, fortune, leadership? Not as I 
read women's hearts, who have known them long 
and well. It is for love's sake — for the bringing in 
of peace on earth, good will to men. The two su- 
preme attractions in nature are gravitation and 
cohesion. That of cohesion attracts atom to atom, 
that of gravitation attracts all atoms to a common 
center. We find in this the most conclusive figure 
of the supremacy of love to God over any human 
love, the true relation of human to the love divine, 
and the conclusive proof that in organizing for the 
greatest number's greatest good, we do but "think 
God's thoughts after Him." 

White-ribbon women distinctly disavow any 
banding together of women as malcontents or 






THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 107 

hostiles toward the correlated other half of the 
human race. Brute force, to our mind, means cus- 
tom as opposed to reason, prejudice as the antagonist 
of fair play, and precedent as the foe of common 
sense. 

It was a beautiful saying of the earlier Metho- 
dists, when they avowed a holy life, " I feel nothing 
contrary to love." But the widening march of 
Christianity has given a wonderfully practical sense 
to such words, and we actually mean here to-day that 
whatever in custom or law is contrary to that love 
of one's neighbor which would give to him or her 
all the rights and privileges that one's self enjoys, 
is but a relic of brute force, and is to be cast out as 
evil. 

And because woman in our most civilized nation 
is still so related to the law that the father can will 
away an unborn child, and that a girl of seven or 
ten years old is held to be the equal partner in a 
crime where another and a stronger is principal; 
because she is in so many ways hampered and 
harmed fey laws and customs pertaining to the past, 
we reach out hands of help especially to her that 
she may overtake the swift marching procession of 
progress; for its sake, that it may not slacken its 
speed on her account, as much as for hers that she 
be not left behind. We thus represent the human 
rather than the woman question, and our voices 
unite to do that which the President of the New York 
Woman's Club beautifully said in a late letter to 
the Club of Bombay: 

" Tell them the world was made for woman, too." 



108 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

As a working hypothesis, no age and no race of 
men can ever go beyond Christ's simple dictum, 
' ' The kingdom of heaven is within you. ' ' It cometh 
not by observation; that is, it cometh not suddenly, 
but little by little, imperceptibly as one particle 
after another is added to one's stature, so by every 
thought, word, and deed, that kingdom has woven 
its warp and woof, wrought out its wonderful beauty 
in our own breasts. All pure habits, all health and 
sanity of brain, make for the kingdom of heaven. 
The steady pulse, the calm and quiet thought, the 
splendid equipoise of will, the patient industry that 
forges right straight on and cannot be abashed or 
turned aside, these make for the kingdom of heaven. 
The helpful hand outstretched to whatsoever beside 
us may crawl or creep, or cling or climb, is a hand 
whose very motion is part of the dynamic forces of 
the kingdom of heaven. The spirit of God, by its 
divine alchemy, works in us to transform, to re-create, 
to vivify our entire being, in spirit, soul, and body, 
until we ourselves incarnate a little section of the 
kingdom of heaven. 

The deepest billows are away out at sea; they 
never come in sight of shore. These waves are like 
the years of God. Upon the shore line of our earthly 
life come the waves of the swift years; they bound 
and break and are no more. But far out upon eter- 
nity's bosom are the great, wide, endless waves that 
make the years of God; they never strike upon the 
shore of time. In all the flurry and the foam about 
us, let us bend our heads to listen to the great 
anthem of that far-off sea, for our life barks shall 
soon be cradled there; we are but building here, the 



THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 109 

launch is not far off, and then the boundless ocean 
of the years of God. 

Miss Willard's magnificent conception of the nec- 
essary correlation of reform forces, her influence in 
allying so many other moral forces with the original 
purpose of the Crusade, has made the Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union the most broadly com- 
prehensive organization the world has ever known. 
This "Do Everything Policy" she thus defines: 

When we began the delicate, difficult, and danger- 
ous operation of dissecting out the alcohol nerve from 
the body politic, we did not realize the intricacy of 
the undertaking, nor the distances that must be 
traversed by the scalpel of investigation and research. 
More than twenty years have elapsed since the call 
to battle sounded its bugle note among the homes 
and hearts of Hillsboro, Ohio. One thought, senti- 
ment, and purpose animated those saintly Praying 
Bands, whose name will never die out from human 
history: "Brothers, we beg of you not to drink and 
not to sell !" This was the single wailing note of these 
moral Paganinis, playing on one string. It caught 
the universal ear and set the key of that mighty 
orchestra, organized with so much toil and hard- 
ship, in which the tender and exalted strain of the 
Crusade violin still soars aloft, but upborne now by 
the clanging cornets of science, the deep trombones 
of legislation, and the thunderous drums of politics 
and parties. The " Do Everything Policy " was not 
of our choosing, but is an evolution as inevitable as 
any traced by the naturalist, or described by the 



110 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

historian. Woman's genius for details and her pa- 
tient steadfastness in following the enemies of those 
she loves through every lane of life, have led her 
to antagonize the alcohol habit and the liquor 
traffic just where they are, wherever that may be. 
If she does this, since they are everywhere, her 
policy will be, "Do Everything." 

A ©ne-sided movement makes one-sided advo- 
cates. Virtues, like hounds, hunt in packs. Total 
abstinence is not the crucial virtue in life that ex- 
cuses financial crookedness, defamation of char- 
acter, or habits of impurity. The fact that one's 
father was, and one's self is, a bright and shining 
light in the total abstinence galaxy, does not give one 
a vantage ground for high-handed behavior toward 
those who have not been trained to the special 
virtue that forms the central idea of the temperance 
movement. We have known persons who, because 
they had "never touched a drop of liquor," set them- 
selves up as if they belonged to a royal line, but 
whose tongues were as biting as alcohol itself and 
whose narrowness had no competitor save a straight 
line. An all-round movement can only be carried 
forward by all-round advocates; a scientific age 
requires the study of every subject in its correlations. 
It was once supposed that light, heat, and electricity 
were wholly separate entities; it is now believed, and 
practically proved, that they are but different modes 
of motion. Standing in the valley, we look up and 
think we see an isolated mountain; climbing to its 
top, we see that it is but one member of a range of 
mountains, many of them of well-nigh equal alti- 
tude. 



THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 111 

Some bright women who have opposed the "Do 
Everything Policy," used as their favorite illustra- 
tion a flowing river, and expatiated on the ruin that 
would follow if that river (which represents their 
Do One Thing Policy) were diverted into many chan- 
nels; but it should be remembered that the most 
useful of all rivers is the Nile, and that the agricul- 
tural economy of Egypt consists in the effort to 
spread its waters upon as many fields as possible. 
It is not for the river's sake that it flows through the 
country, but for the sake of the fertility it can bring 
upon the adjoining fields, and this is pre-eminently 
true of the temperance reform. 

Let us not be disconcerted, but stand bravely 
by that blessed trinity of movements, Prohibition, 
Woman's Liberation, and Labor's Uplift. 

Everything is not in the Temperance Reform, 
but the Temperance Reform should be in every- 
thing. 

"Organized Mother-Love" is the best defini- 
tion of the white-ribbon movement, and it can 
have no better motto than: "Make a chain, for 
the land is full of bloody crimes and the city of 
violence." 

If we can remember this simple rule, it will do 
much to unravel the mystery of the much-con- 
troverted "Do Everything Policy," namely, that 
every question of practical philanthropy or reform 
has its temperance aspect, and with that we are to 
deal. 

Miss Willard's conviction of the essential right and 
justice of the principle of woman suffrage, with a 



112 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

twin conviction that she must be its public advo- 
cate, came to her in the capital of the Crusade State 
in 1876, while she was upon her knees in prayer, 
lifting her heart to God with the cry, "What wouldst 
Thou have me to do?" She felt that all the power 
of God would be at her disposal in her advocacy of 
the views she was constrained to declare, and at once 
asked permission to present the subject at the pro- 
jected Centennial temperance meeting, in the Acad- 
emy of Music, Philadelphia, but the request was 
declined. Even at Chautauqua, a few weeks later, 
she felt the conservative influence and refrained from 
speaking out her deepest thought. This dauntless 
pioneer next visited Old Orchard Beach, and she tells 
us that in the "fragrant air of Maine's dear piney 
woods, with the great free ocean's salt spray to in- 
vigorate lungs and soul, I first avowed the faith 
that was within me. All around, my good friends 
looked so much surprised and some of them so 
sorry." Miss Willard found a strong friend in 
Maria Mitchell, who gave her a "home protection 
audience," at the Woman's Congress. Her first 
avowal of this theme, dear to her heart, before the 
National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 
was made in the year 1876 before the annual con- 
vention, held in Newark, New Jersey. Miss Wil- 
lard's own pen picture is the best delineation of that 
now historic scene: 



THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 113 

By this time my soul had come to "woe is me if I 
declare not this gospel." Welcome or not, the 
words must come. In a great crowded church, with 
smiles on some faces and frowns on others, I came 
forward. Our gifted Mary Lathrap had told a war 
story in one of her addresses about a colored man 
who saw a boat bearing down upon the skiff drawn 
up to shore, in which he and three white men were 
concealed. If he could only push off instantly they 
would be saved, but to show himself was fatal. But 
he did not hesitate; calling out, "Somebody's got to 
be killed, and it might as well be me," he launched 
the boat and fell with a bullet in his heart. In that 
difficult hour this story came to me, and as I told 
it some of my good friends wept at the thought of 
ostracism which, from that day to this, has been its 
sequel — not as a rule, but a painful exception. 
When I had finished the argument, a lady from New 
York, gray-haired and dignified, who was presiding, 
said to the audience: "The National Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union is not responsible for 
the utterances of this evening. W T e have no mind 
to trail our skirts in the mire of politics." She doubt- 
less felt it her duty to speak, and I had no thought 
of blame, only regret. As we left the church, one 
of our chief women said: "You might have been a 
leader in our national councils, but you have deliber- 
ately chosen to be only a scout." 

Miss Willard had no way of knowing, unless by 
divine intuition, that this prophecy was false; yet 
a scout she dared and chose to become. Three years 
later, at the very Convention which elected her its 



114 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

president, the Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union declared for the ballot in the hands of woman, 
and during the years which have followed it is uni- 
versally acknowledged to have accomplished more 
in molding the public opinion of the home and the 
church in favor of this reform than has any other 
one agency. 

Concerning the prohibition policy Miss Willard 
thus sets forth the position of the white-ribbon 
organization : 

PROHIBITION 

We base our plea for prohibition on the principle 
set forth by the Supreme Court of the country in 
what have become "household words" among our 
temperance women: 

"No legislature can bargain away the public 
health or the public morals; the people themselves 
cannot do it, much less their servants. Govern- 
ment is organized with a view to their preservation, 
and cannot divest itself of the power to provide 
for them." 

We had in the United States last year more than 
ten thousand murders and more than six thousand 
suicides, or an average of thirty murders a day, be- 
sides twelve monthly lynchings. Since 1867 these 
terrible * takings off' have multiplied in proportion 
to the population at the rate of three to one. The 
papers that I read, not only from the metropolis 
itself, but from Maine to California, would seem 
to indicate that murders are the staple product. 



THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 115 

We have the testimony of Judge Noah Davis, of 
New York City, twenty years on the bench, that 
ninety per cent of the crime is due to strong drink. 

Any reasoning man who can put these facts 
together and then vote for license has the mind 
of a man without conscience, or without adequate 
knowledge, or with a serious twist in brain or con- 
science — at least this is my humble opinion. The 
fact is, "My people perish for lack of knowledge." 
There is not a good man between the oceans who 
would not vote against throwing around the saloon 
the guarantees and safeguards of the municipality 
if he had studied the question with an honest desire 
to know whether it is better to be linked with the 
traffic, by accepting the bonus that it gives in order 
to have the law on its side, or squarely to vote 
against it, thus removing one 's self from any conniv- 
ance with the abomination, and then to try to 
carry out the intention of that vote so far as possible. 
That which the people have legalized they can ren- 
der illegal, and it is their solemn duty before God 
and humanity to render the liquor traffic illegal. 
I believe, with all my heart, that the men who vote 
to give it a legal status will meet their record farther 
on to their unspeakable regret and immeasurable 
remorse. It is a long lane that has no turning. 
If we sow the wind we are sure to reap the whirl- 
wind. "Be not deceived, God is not mocked; 
whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." 

In the vocabulary of "practical statesmanship" 
the words, "opportune" and "expedient" stand at 
the head. We would make the same criticism 
upon them that Abraham Lincoln did concerning a 



116 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

book left with him by the agent who demanded a 
notice, whereupon the great man wrote, "For those 
who like this sort of book, it is about the sort of 
book they like," and for those who ring the changes 
upon opportunism and expediency, there is nothing 
to be done except to let them ring. But this is not 
the genius or the spirit of the white-ribbon movement. 
Nothing could have been more impolitic than for 
women to form processions on the streets as a 
demonstration against the liquor traffic; nothing 
could have been less opportune than prayer-meetings 
in saloons, and pounding with hatchets the casks 
and barrels of the dramshop, but these humble and 
unheard-of means were used by the heavenly powers 
to concentrate the gaze of the world upon the plague 
spot of the republic, and from these beginnings, which 
were to the wise foolishness and to the statesman 
an infatuation, has come a movement that, if we 
are true to its hidings of power, will be pervasive 
before long, and some day it will be triumphant. 

Besides being wholly wicked in principle, any 
form of license is pitiably inconsequent in policy. 
Consider once more the false and arrogant claim 
of license with the misleading prefix "high," that 
latest device of Satan, who herein proves his power, 
as many times before, to "deceive the very elect." 
That some good men have been led away by its 
lying promises, makes this unhallowed method of 
legislation all the more dangerous. Fortunately 
no temperance expert in the nation, no man or 
woman who has made such a study of the principles 
involved as those do whose lives are consecrated to 
the greatest of reforms, has spoken one word in 





THE DEN, REST COTTAGE 



THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER 117 

favor of this worst of all methods for handling the 
liquor traffic. They know too well that high 
license yokes Mammon to the chariot wheels of 
King Alcohol. It puts a premium on the cupidity 
of tax-payers and lulls their consciences to sleep 
with its siren song, "Make the traffic bear its own 
burdens," until their dulled perception loses out of 
sight the fact that they have legalized a traffic which 
will render at once necessary the expense of alms- 
house, hospital, insane asylum, and penitentiary, and 
is fed by the debauchery of their own children. 

Moral chloroform thus administered in the form 
of poisoned gold, to a city or a commonwealth, means 
its certain degradation; the ruin which is no less 
intellectually than morally sure to fall upon a people 
who "call evil good and good evil; who put darkness 
for light and light for darkness." 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE "HOME PROTECTION" ADDRESS 

"The whisky power looms like a Chimborazo 
among the mountains of difficulty over which our 
native land must climb to reach the future of our 
dreams. The problem of the rum power's over- 
throw may well engage our thoughts as women and 
as patriots. To-night I ask you to consider it in 
the light of a truth which Frederick Douglass has 
embodied in these words: 'We can in the long 
run trust all the knowledge in the community to 
take care of all the ignorance of the community, 
and all of its virtue to take care of all of its vice.' 
The difficulty in the application of this principle 
lies in the fact that vice is always in the active, 
virtue often in the passive. Vice is aggressive. It 
deals swift, sure blows, delights in keen-edged 
weapons, and prefers a hand-to-hand conflict, while 
virtue instinctively fights its unsavory antagonist 
at arm's length; its great guns are unwieldy and 
slow to swing into range. 

"Vice is the tiger, with keen eyes, alert ears, and 
cat-like tread, while virtue is the slow-paced, com- 
placent, easy-going elephant, whose greatest dan- 

118 



THE "HOME PROTECTION" ADDRESS 119 

ger lies in its ponderous weight and conscious- 
ness of power. So the great question narrows down 
to one of methods. It is not, when we look care- 
fully into the conditions of the problem, how shall 
we develop more virtue in the community to offset 
the tropical growth of vice by which we find our- 
selves environed, but rather, how the tremendous 
force we have may best be brought to bear, how we 
may unlimber the huge cannon now pointing into 
vacancy, and direct their full charge at short range 
upon our nimble, wily, vigilant foe? 

"As bearing upon a consideration of that question, 
I lay down this proposition : All pure and Christian 
sentiment concerning any line of conduct which 
vitally affects humanity will, sooner or later, 
crystallize into law. But the keystone of law can 
only be firm and secure when it is held in place by 
the arch of that keystone, which is public sentiment. 

"I make another statement not so often reiterated, 
but just as true, namely: The more thoroughly 
you can enlist in favor of your law the natural in- 
stincts of those who have the power to make that 
law, and to select the officers who shall enforce it, 
the more securely stands the law. And still another : 
First among the powerful and controlling instincts 
in our nature stands that of self-preservation, and 
next after this, if it does not claim superior rank, 
comes that of a mother's love. You can count upon 



120 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

that every time; it is sure and resistless as the 
tides of the sea, for it is founded in the changeless 
nature given to her from God. 

"Now, the stronghold of the rum power lies in 
the fact that it has upon its side two deeply-rooted 
appetites, namely: in the dealer, the appetite for 
gain, and in the drinker, the appetite for stimulants. 
We have dolorously said in times gone by that on the 
human plane we have nothing adequate to match 
against this frightful pair. But let us think more 
carefully and we shall find that, as in nature God 
has given us an antidote to every poison, and in 
grace a compensation for every loss, so in human 
society He has prepared against alcohol, that worst 
foe of the social state, an enemy under whose weap- 
ons it is to bite the dust. 

"Think of it! There is a class in every one of our 
communities — in many of them far the most num- 
erous class — which (I speak not vauntingly ; I but 
name it as a fact) has not in all the centuries of 
wine, beer, and brandy drinking developed, as a 
class, an appetite for alcohol, but whose instincts, 
on the contrary, set so strongly against intoxicants 
that if the liquor traffic were dependent on their 
patronage alone, it would collapse this night as if all 
the nitro-glycerine of Hell Gate reef had exploded 
under it. 

"There is a class whose instinct of self-preserva- 



THE "HOME PROTECTION" ADDRESS 121 

tion must forever be opposed to a stimulant which 
nerves with dangerous strength arms already so 
much stronger than their own, and so maddens the 
brain God meant to guide those arms, that they 
strike down the wives men love, and the little 
children for whom, when sober, they would die. 
The wife, largely dependent for the support of her- 
self and little ones upon the brain which strong 
drink paralyzes, the arm it masters, and the skill it 
renders futile, will, in the nature of the case, prove 
herself unfriendly to the actual or potential source 
of so much misery. But besides this primal in- 
stinct of self-preservation, we have in the same class 
of which I speak, another far more high and sacred 
— I mean the instinct of a mother's love, a wife's 
devotion, a sister's faithfulness, a daughter's loyal- 
ty. And now I ask you to consider earnestly the 
fact that none of these blessed rays of light and 
power from woman's heart are as yet brought to 
bear upon the rum shop at the focus of power. They 
are, I know, the sweet and pleasant sunshine of our 
homes; they are the beams which light the larger 
home of social life and send their gentle radiance out 
even into the great and busy world. 

"But I know, and as the knowledge has grown 
clearer, my heart has thrilled with gratitude and 
hope too deep for words, that in a republic all these 
now divergent beams of light can, through that magic 



122 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

lens, that powerful sun-glass which we name the 
ballot, be made to converge upon the rum shop in a 
blaze of light that shall reveal its full abominations, 
and a white flame of heat which, like a pitiless moxa, 
shall burn this cancerous excrescence from Amer- 
ica's fair form. Yes, for there is nothing in the 
universe so sure, so strong, as love; and love shall 
do all this — the love of maid for sweetheart, wife 
for husband, of a sister for her brother, of a mother 
for her son. And I call upon you who are here to- 
day, good men and brave — you who have welcomed 
us to other fields in the great fight of the angel 
against the dragon in society — I call upon you thus 
to match force with force, to set over against the 
liquor-dealer's avarice our instinct of self-preserva- 
tion; and to match the drinker's love of liquor with 
our love of him! When you can center all this 
power in that small bit of paper which falls 

'As snowflakes fall upon the sod; 

But executes a freeman's will, as lightnings do the will of God, 

the rum power will be as much doomed as was the 
slave power when you gave the ballot to the slaves. 
"In our argument it has been claimed that by the 
changeless instincts of her nature and through the 
most sacred relationships of which that nature has 
been rendered capable, God has indicated woman, 
who is the born conservator of home, to be the 
Nemesis of home 's arch enemy, King Alcohol. And, 



THE "HOME PROTECTION" ADDRESS 123 

further, that in a republic, this power of hers may 
be most effectively exercised by giving her a voice 
in the decision by which the rum-shop door shall 
be opened or closed beside her home. 

"This position is strongly supported by evidence. 
About the year 1850, petitions were extensively 
circulated in Cincinnati (later the fiercest battle- 
ground of the Woman's Crusade), asking that the 
liquor traffic be put under the ban of law. Bishop 
Simpson — one of the noblest and most discerning 
minds of his century — was deeply interested in 
this movement. It was decided to ask for the names 
of women, as well as those of men, and it was found 
that the former signed the petition more readily 
and in much larger numbers than the latter. Anoth- 
er fact was ascertained which rebuts the hackneyed 
assertion that women of the lower class will not be 
on the temperance side in this great war. For it 
was found — as might, indeed, have been most 
reasonably predicted — that the ignorant, the poor 
(many of them wives, mothers, and daughters of 
intemperate men), were among the most eager to 
sign the petition. 

"Many a hand was taken from the washtub to 
hold the pencil and affix the signature of women of 
this class, and many another, which could only make 
the sign of the cross, did that with tears and a 
hearty 'God bless you.' 'That was a wonderful 



124 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

lesson to me,' said the good Bishop, and he has al- 
ways believed since then that God will give our 
enemy into our hands by giving to us an ally still 
more powerful — woman with the ballot against 
rum shops in our land. It has been said so often 
that the very frequency of reiteration has in some 
minds induced belief, that women of the better class 
will never consent to declare themselves at the polls. 
But tens of thousands from the most tenderly 
sheltered homes have gone day after day to the 
saloons, and have spent hour after hour upon their 
sanded floors, and in their reeking air — places in 
which not the worst politician would dare to locate 
the ballot box of freemen, though they but stay a 
moment at the window, slip in their votes, and go 
their way. 

"Nothing worse can ever happen to women at the 
polls than has been endured by the hour on the part 
of conservative women of the churches in this land, 
as they, in scores of towns, have pleaded with rough, 
half-drunken men to vote the temperance tickets 
they have handed them, and which, with vastly 
more of propriety and fitness, they might have 
dropped into the box themselves. They could have 
done this in a moment, and returned to their homes, 
instead of spending the whole day in the often futile 
endeavor to beg from men like these the votes which 
should preserve their homes from the whisky ser- 



THE "HOME PROTECTION "ADDRESS 125 

pent's breath for one uncertain year. I spent last 
May in Ohio, traveling constantly, and seeking on 
every side to learn the views of the noble women of 
the Crusade. They put their opinions in words 
like these: 'We believe that as God led us into 
this work by way of the saloons, He will lead us out 
by way of the ballot. We have never prayed more 
earnestly over the one than we shall over the other. 
One was the Wilderness, the other is the Promised 
Land.' 

"A Presbyterian lady, rigidly conservative, said: 
'For my part, I never wanted to vote until our 
gentlemen passed a prohibition ordinance so as to 
get us to stop visiting saloons, and a month later re- 
pealed it and chose a saloon-keeper for mayor.' 

"Said a grand-daughter of Jonathan Edwards, a 
woman with no toleration toward the suffrage move- 
ment, a woman crowned with the glory of gray hairs, 
a central figure in her native town — and as she 
spoke the courage and faith of the Puritans thrilled 
her voice: 'If, with the ballot in our hands, we 
can, as I firmly believe, put down this awful traffic, 
I am ready to lead the women of my town to the 
polls, as I have often led them to the rum shops.' 

"We must not forget that for every woman who 
joins the Temperance Unions that have sprung up 
all through the world, there are at least a score who 
sympathize, but do not join. Home influence and 



126 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

cares prevent them, ignorance of our aims and 
methods, lack of consecration to Christian work — 
a thousand reasons, sufficient in their estimation, 
though not in ours, hold them away from us. And 
yet they have this Temperance cause warmly at 
heart; the logic of events has shown them that there 
is but one side on which a woman may safely stand 
in this great battle, and on that side they would 
indubitably range themselves in the quick, decisive 
battle of election day, nor would they give their 
voice a second time in favor of the man who had once 
betrayed his pledge to enforce the most stringent 
law for the protection of their homes. There are 
many noble women, too, who, though they do not 
think as do the Temperance Unions about the deep 
things of religion, and are not as yet decided in their 
total abstinence sentiments, nor ready for the blessed 
work of prayer, are nevertheless decided in their 
views of woman suffrage, and ready to vote a tem- 
perance ticket side by side with us. And there are 
the drunkard's wife and daughters, who from very 
shame will not come with us, or who dare not, yet 
who could freely vote with us upon this question; 
for the folded ballot tells no tales. 

"Among other cumulative proofs in this argu- 
ment from experience, let us consider, briefly, the 
attitude of the Catholic Church toward the tem- 
perance reform. It is friendly, at least. Father 



THE "HOME PROTECTION" ADDRESS 127 

Mathew's spirit lives to-day in many a faithful 
parish priest. In our processions on the Centennial 
Fourth of July, the banners of Catholic Total 
Abstinence Societies were often the only reminders 
that the republic has any temperance people within 
its borders, as they were the only offset to brewers' 
wagons and distillers' casks; while among the monu- 
ments of our cause, by which this memorable year 
is signalized, their fountain in Fairmount Park — 
standing in the midst of eighty drinking places 
licensed by our Government — is chief. Catholic 
women would vote with Protestant women upon 
this issue for the protection of their homes 

"Again, among the thousands of churches of 
America, with their millions of members, two-thirds 
are women. Thus, only one-third of this trust- 
worthy and thoughtful class has any voice in the 
laws by which, between the church and the public 
school, the rum shop nestles in this Christian land. 
Surely all this must change before the government 
shall be upon His shoulders 'who shall one day 
reign King of nations as He now reigns King of 
saints.' 

"Furthermore, nine-tenths of the teachers in this 
land are women, whose thoughtful judgment, ex- 
pressed with the authority of which I speak, would 
greatly help forward the victory of our cause. And 
finally, by those who fear the effect of the foreign 



128 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

element in our country, let it be remembered that 
we have six native women for every one who is 
foreign born, for it is men who emigrate in largest 
numbers to our shores. 

"When all these facts (and many more that might 
be added) are marshaled into line, how illogical it 
seems for good men to harangue us as they do about 
our 'duty to educate public sentiment to the level 
of better law,' and to exhort true-hearted American 
mothers to 'train their sons to vote aright.' As 
said Mrs. Governor Wallace, of Indiana — until 
the Crusade an opponent of the franchise — * What 
a bitter sarcasm you utter, gentlemen, to us who 
have the public sentiment of which you speak, all 
burning in our hearts, and yet are not permitted to 
turn it to account.' 

"Let us, then, each one of us, offer our earnest 
prayer to God, and speak our honest word to man 
in favor of this added weapon in woman's hands, 
remembering that every petition in the ear of God, 
and every utterance in the ears of men, swells the 
dimensions of that resistless tide of influence which 
shall yet float within our reach all that we ask or 
need. Good and true women who have crusaded 
in rum shops, I urge that you begin crusading in 
halls of legislation, in primary meetings, and in the 
offices of excise commissioners. Roll in your peti- 
tions, burnish your arguments, multiply your 



THE "HOME PROTECTION" ADDRESS 129 

prayers. Go to the voters in your town — procure 
the official list and see them one by one — and get 
them pledged to a local ordinance requiring the 
votes of men and women before a license can be 
issued to open rum-shop doors beside your homes; 
go to the legislature with the same; remember this 
may be just as really Christian work as praying in 
saloons was in those other glorious days. Let us 
not limit God, whose modes of operation are so 
infinitely varied in nature and in grace. I believe 
in the correlation of spiritual forces, and that the 
heat which melted hearts to tenderness in the 
Crusade is soon to be the light which shall reveal 
our opportunity and duty as the Republic's 
daughters. 

"Longer ago than I shall tell, my father returned 
one night to the far-off Wisconsin home where I was 
reared; sitting by my mother's chair, with a child's 
attentive ear, I listened to their words. He told 
us of the news that day had brought about Neal 
Dow and the great fight for prohibition down in 
Maine, and then he said: *I wonder if poor, rum- 
cursed Wisconsin will ever get a law like that?' 
And mother rocked awhile in silence in the dear old 
chair I love, and then she gently said: 'Yes, 
Josiah; there'll be such a law all over the land some 
day, when women vote.' 

"My father had never heard her say so much 



130 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

before. He was a great conservative; so he looked 
tremendously astonished, and replied in his keen, 
sarcastic voice: 'And pray how will you arrange 
it so that women shall vote?' Mother's chair 
went to and fro a little faster for a minute, and 
then, looking not into his face, but into the flicker- 
ing flames of the grate, she slowly answered : ' Well, 
I say to you, as the apostle Paul said to his jailer, 
'You have put us into prison, we being Romans, 
and you must come and take us out.' 

"That was a seed-thought in a girl's brain and 
heart. Years passed on, in which nothing more 
was said upon this dangerous theme. My brother 
grew to manhood, and soon after he was twenty- 
one years old he went with his father to vote. Stand- 
ing by the window, a girl of sixteen years, a girl of 
simple, homely fancies, not at all strong-minded, 
and altogether ignorant of the world, I looked out 
as they drove away, my father and my brother, 
and as I looked I felt a strange ache in my heart, 
and tears sprang to my eyes. Turning to my sister 
Mary, who stood beside me, I saw that the dear 
little innocent seemed wonderfully sober, too. I 
said: 'Don't you wish we could go with them 
when we are old enough? Don't we love our 
country just as well as they do?' And her little, 
frightened voice piped out: 'Yes, of course we 
ought. Don't I know that? But you mustn't tell 



THE "HOME PROTECTION "ADDRESS 131 

a soul — not mother, even; we should be called 
strong-minded.' 

"In all the years since then I have kept these 
things, and many others like them, and pondered 
them in my heart; but two years of struggle in this 
temperance reform have shown me my duty, as 
they have ten thousand other women, so clearly 
and so impressively, that I long ago passed the 
Rubicon of silence, and am ready for any battle 
that shall be involved in this honest declaration of 
the faith that is within me. ' Fight behind masked 
batteries a little longer,' whisper good friends and 
true. So I have been fighting hitherto; but it is a 
style of warfare altogether foreign to my tempera- 
ment and mode of life. Reared on the prairies, 
I seemed predetermined to join the cavalry forces 
in this great spiritual war, and I must tilt a free 
lance henceforth on the splendid battlefield of this 
reform; where the earth shall soon be shaken by the 
onset of contending hosts; where legions of valiant 
soldiers are deploying; where to the grand encounter 
marches to-day a great army, gentle of mien and 
mild of utterance, but with hearts for any fate; 
where there are trumpets and bugles calling strong 
souls onward to a victory that heaven might envy, 
and 

1 Where, behind the dim Unknown, 

Standeth God within the shadow, 
Keeping watch above His own.' 



132 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

"I thought that women ought to have the ballot 
as I paid the hard-earned taxes upon my mother's 
cottage home — but I never said as much — some- 
how the motive did not command my heart. For 
my own sake, I had not courage, but I have for thy 
sake, dear native land, for thy necessity is as much 
greater than mine as thy transcendent hope is greater 
than the personal interest of thy humble child. 
For love of you, heart-broken wives, whose tremulous 
lips have blessed me; for love of you, sweet moth- 
ers, who, in the cradle's shadow, kneel this night 
beside your infant sons; and you, sorrowful little 
children, who listen at this hour, with faces strange- 
ly old, for him whose footsteps frighten you, — for 
love of you have I thus spoken. 

"Ah, it is women who have given the costliest 
hostages to fortune. Out into the battle of life 
they have sent their best beloved, with fearful odds 
against them, with snares that men have legalized 
and set for them on every hand. Beyond the arms 
that held them long, their boys have gone forever. 
Oh! by the danger they have dared; by the hours 
of patient watching over beds where helpless children 
lay; by the incense of ten thousand prayers wafted 
from their gentle lips to heaven, I charge you give 
them power to protect, along life's treacherous 
highway, those whom they have so loved. Let it 
no longer be that they must sit back among the 



THE "HOME PROTECTION" ADDRESS 133 

shadows, hopelessly mourning over their strong 
staff broken, and their beautiful rod; but when the 
sons they love shall go forth to life's battle, still 
let their mothers walk beside them, sweet and 
serious, and clad in the garments of power." 



CHAPTER IX 
THE DEFENDER OF HER FAITH 

The same calm and, to a superficial observer, 

reckless disregard of consequences, marked Miss 

Willard's policy in the later struggle for affiliation 

with that political party which, in her judgment, 

alone breathed the spirit of the Crusade. When 

convinced by the resistless logic of events, and the 

equally resistless logic of her own mind, that 

woman's ballot could be an effective agency for the 

preservation of the home only as a proper channel 

should be supplied through which it might express 

itself, she at once set out to find that channel. 

When she believed she had found it, she did not 

hesitate to throw the whole weight of her influence 

in favor of that party which seemed to her the best 

embodiment of home protection. It was not an 

easy thing to do. Party feeling ran far higher in 

those years than, please God, it is likely to do again. 

It took courage to go against those with whom for 

years she had been in perfect accord, courage to be 

branded as a fanatic and an iconoclast; but just 

that splendid courage was hers, and having once set 

her hand to the plow, there was for her no looking 

back. 

134 



THE DEFENDER OF HER FAITH 135 

Her first utterance in favor of party prohibition 
was made at the Boston Convention in 1880; her 
last at Buffalo, when, the report of the Committee 
on Resolutions having been presented during her 
absence from the hall, she arose in the great public 
meeting at night and, in her quaintly humorous 
way, announced that it had been "moved, seconded, 
and unanimously carried in her own mind" that the 
differing factions existing among her beloved 
brethren should once more come together, should 
insert a woman suffrage plank in their platform, 
and under the glorious name of the "Home Protec- 
tion Party" march on to victory. During those 
intervening years no faction, no schism, no ridicule, 
no persecution, had turned her from her purpose. 
She still believed a party might and should exist 
which would embody in its name, and in its platform, 
all that the term "Home Protection" meant to her 
home-loving heart! Having "done all," she stood. 

Hers was the genius which not only sees new light 
and invents new methods, but which recognizes all 
that is true in the old light and uses old methods in 
such a way as to make them seem perennially new. 
This was especially true of her use of the time- 
honored custom of petitioning. She believed with 
all her heart in the petition as a medium for the 
expression of opinion and as a means for educating 
public sentiment, but she took the old form and 



136 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

made it wholly new by her skillful manipulation. 
Witness the famous "Home Protection Petition," 
of Illinois, which was her first work as president of 
her adopted State: 

THE HOME PROTECTION PETITION 

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
State of Illinois: 

Whereas, In these years of temperance work the 
argument of defeat in our contest with the saloons 
has taught us that our efforts are merely palliative 
of a disease in the body politic, which can never be 
cured until law and moral suasion go hand in hand 
in our beloved State; and 

Whereas, The instincts of self-protection and of 
apprehension for the safety of her children, her 
tempted loved ones, and her home, render woman 
the natural enemy of the saloon; 

Therefore, Your petitioners, men and women of 
the State of Illinois, having at heart the protection 
of our homes from their worst enemy, the legalized 
traffic in strong drink, do hereby most earnestly 
pray your honorable body that by suitable legisla- 
tion it may be provided that in the State of Illinois 
the question of licensing at any time, in any locality, 
the sale of any and all intoxicating drinks shall be 
submitted to and determined by ballot, in which 
women of lawful age shall be privileged to take part, 
in the same manner as men, when voting on the 
question of license. 

To this petition were secured in ninety days two 
hundred thousand names. The State House in 



THE DEFENDER OF HER FAITH 137 

Springfield was draped with the petition pasted 
upon white cloth, one edge of which was bound with 
red and the other with blue, and its presentation 
was made a genuine gala-day. 

The Memorial presented before the various 
political conventions in the year 1884 is another 
example of the skillful use to which she could put 
"the right of a sovereign people to petition,'' while 
her Purity Petition, which served largely as the basis 
of the White Cross and White Shield work in the 
National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 
has been presented before the legislatures of nearly 
every state in the Union, with blessed results: 

PETITION OF THE WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE 
UNION 
FOR FURTHER PROVISION FOR THE PROTECTION 
OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 

To the Honorable, the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives of the State of : 

The increasing and alarming frequency of assaults 
upon women, the frightful indignities to which even 
little girls are subject, and the corrupting of boys, 
have become the shame of our boasted civilization. 

We believe that the statutes of do not meet 

the demands of that newly awakened public senti- 
ment which requires better legal protection for 
womanhood and childhood; 

Therefore, we, the undersigned citizens of , 

County of , and State of , pray you to 



138 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

enact further provision for the protection of women 
and children. And we call attention to the disgrace- 
ful fact that protection of the person is not placed 
by our laws upon so high a plane as protection of the 
purse. 

As a presiding officer Miss Willard was without 
a peer. It was an education in itself to see her mar- 
shal the hosts at one of the great conventions of the 
National Woman's Christian Temperance Union. 
However skeptical a visitor might be of "women's 
meetings" — however prejudiced against this partic- 
ular woman as the embodiment of "white-ribbon 
fanaticism" — he was not proof against the magic 
spell of the gavel in her firm little hand and the 
inspiration of her exquisite face. How much he 
might have gone "to scoff," he remained — if not 
"to pray," to marvel at the power of the woman 
whom he had seen before him perhaps for days. Her 
graceful tact, her quickness of repartee, her won- 
drous grace and graciousness, her felicity of word 
and phrase, her comprehensive mind, and her all- 
embracing heart, were never more clearly seen than 
in one of those home-gatherings of the white-ribbon 
clans. She was not an uncrowned but a crowned 
queen in those days, and her loyal, devoted subjects 
delighted to bow to her mandate and to do her glad 
homage. For nineteen years "her banner over us 
was love"; love like the mighty waves of the ocean 



THE DEFENDER OF HER FAITH 139 

from her heart to ours — an answering love, the 
chorus of many waters — from our hearts to hers. 
The best definition of the Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union and its multiplied activities 
must be given by our leader herself, and we quote 
from one of her matchless annual addresses before 
the National Convention: 

More than any other society ever formed, the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union is the expo- 
nent of what is best in this latter-day civilization. 
Its scope is the broadest, its aims are the kindest, 
its history is the most heroic. I yield to none in 
admiration of woman's splendid achievements in 
church work and in the Foreign Missionary Societies, 
which became my first love as a philanthropist, but 
in both instances the denominational character of 
that work interferes with its unity and breadth. 
The same is true of woman's educational under- 
takings, glorious as they are. Her many-sided 
charities, in homes for the orphaned and the indigent, 
hospitals for the sick and asylums for the old, are 
the admiration of all generous hearts, but these are 
local in their interest, and they result from the loving 
labors of isolated groups. The same is true of the 
women's prisons and industrial schools, which are 
now multiplying with such beneficent rapidity. 
Nor do I forget the sanitary work of women, which 
gleamed like a heavenly rainbow on the horrid 
front of war; but noble men shared the labor as they 
did the honor on that memorable field. Neither am 
I unmindful of the Woman's Christian Association, 



140 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

strongly intrenched in most of our great cities, and 
doing valiant battle for the Prince of Peace; but it 
admits to its sacramental host only members of the 
churches known as evangelical. Far be it from me 
to seem indifferent to that electric intellectual 
movement from which have resulted the societies, 
literary and aesthetic, in which women have com- 
bined to study classic history, philosophy, and art, 
but these have no national unity; or to forget the 
Woman's Congress, with its annual meeting and 
wide outlook, but lack of local auxiliaries; or the 
Exchanges, where women, too poor or too proud to 
bring their wares before the public, are helped to put 
money in their purse, but which lack cohesion; or 
the state and associated charities, where women do 
much of the work and men most of the superin- 
tendence. But when all is said, the Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union, local, state, and 
national, in the order of its growth, with its unique 
and heavenly origin, its steady march, its multiplied 
auxiliaries, its blessed out-reaching to the generous 
South and the far frontier, its broad sympathies 
and its "abundant entrance" ministered to all good 
and true women who are willing to clasp hands in 
one common effort to protect their homes and loved 
ones from the ravages of drink, is an organization 
without a pattern save that seen in heavenly vision 
upon the mount of faith, and without a peer among 
the sisterhoods that have grouped themselves 
around the cross of Christ. 

In the fulness of time this mighty work has been 
given us. Preceding ages would not have understood 
the end in view and would have spurned the means, 



THE DEFENDER OF HER FAITH 141 

but the nineteenth century, standing on the shoul- 
ders of its predecessors, has a wider outlook and a 
keener vision. It has studied science and dis- 
covered that the tumult of the whirlwind is less 
powerful than the silence of the dew. It has ran- 
sacked history and learned that the banner and the 
sword were never yet the symbols of man's grandest 
victories, and it begins at last to listen to the voice 
of that inspired philosophy which through all ages 
has been gently saying: "The race is not always to 
the swift, neither the battle to the strong." 

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union 
stands as the exponent, not alone of that return to 
physical sanity which will follow the downfall of 
the drink habit, but of the reign of a religion of the 
body which for the first time in history shall correlate 
with Christ's wholesome, practical, yet blessedly 
spiritual religion of the soul. "The kingdom of 
heaven is within you" shall have a new meaning to 
the clear-eyed, steady-limbed Christians of the 
future, from whose brain and blood the taint of 
alcohol and nicotine has been eliminated by ages 
of pure habits and noble heredity. "The body is 
the temple of the Holy Ghost" will not then seem so 
mystical a statement, nor one indicative of a temple 
so insalubrious as now. "He that destroy eth this 
temple, him shall God destroy," will be seen to 
involve no element of vengeance, but instead to be 
the declaration of such boundless love and pity for 
our race as would not suffer its deterioration to reach 
the point of absolute failure and irremediable loss. 

The women of this land have never had before 



142 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

such training as is furnished by the topical studies 
of our society, in the laws by which childhood shall 
set out upon its endless journey with a priceless 
heritage of powers laid up in store by the tender, 
sacred foresight of those by whom the young im- 
mortal's being was invoked. The laws of health 
were never studied by so many mothers, or with such 
immediate results for good on their own lives and 
those of their children. The deformed waist and 
foot of the average fashionable American never 
seemed so hideous and wicked, nor the cumbrous 
dress of the period so unendurable as now, when, 
from studying one " poison habit," our minds by 
the inevitable laws of thought reach out to wider 
researches and more varied deductions than we had 
dreamed at first. The economies of co-operative 
housekeeping never looked so attractive or so 
feasible as since the homemakers have learned 
something about the priceless worth of time and 
money for the purposes of a Christ-like benevolence. 
The value of a trained intellect never had such 
significance as since we have learned what an 
incalculable saving of words there is in a direct 
style, what value in the power of classification of 
fact, what boundless resources for illustrating and 
enforcing truth come as the sequel of a well-stored 
memory and a cultivated imagination. The puerility 
of mere talk for the sake of talk, the unworthiness 
of "idle words," and vacuous, purposeless gossip, the 
waste of long and aimless letter-writing, never 
looked so egregious as to the workers who find every 
day too short for the glorious and gracious deeds 
which lie waiting for them on every hand. 



THE DEFENDER OF HER FAITH 143 

But to help forward the coming of Christ in 
all departments of life is, in its last analysis, the 
purpose and aim of the Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Union. For we believe this correlation of 
New Testament religion with philanthropy, and of 
the Church with civilization, is the perpetual miracle 
which furnishes the only sufficient antidote to 
current skepticism. Higher toward the zenith 
climbs the Sun of Righteousness, making circle 
after circle of human endeavor and achievement 
warm and radiant with the healing of its beams. 
First of all, in our gospel temperance work, this 
heavenly light penetrated the gloom of the individ- 
ual tempted heart (that smallest circle, in which all 
others are involved), illumined its darkness, melted 
its hardness, made it a sweet and sunny place — a 
temple filled with the Holy Ghost. 

Having thus come to the heart of the drinking 
man in the plenitude of His redeeming power, Christ 
entered the next wider circle, in which two human 
hearts unite to form a home, and here, by the 
revelation of her place in His kingdom, He lifted to 
an equal level with her husband the gentle com- 
panion who had supposed herself happy in being 
the favorite vassal of her liege lord. "There is 
neither male nor female in Christ Jesus;" this was 
the open sesame, a declaration utterly opposed to 
all custom and tradition; but so steadily the light 
has shone, and so kindly has it made the heart of 
man, that without strife of tongues, or edict of 
sovereigns, it is coming now to pass that in propor- 
tion as any home is really Christian, the husband 
and the wife are peers in dignity and power. There 



144 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

are no homes on earth where woman is revered, 
beloved, and individualized in character and work 
so thoroughly as in the fifty thousand in America, 
where "her children rise up and call her blessed; her 
husband also, and he praiseth her,'* because of her 
part in the work of our Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Union. 

Beyond this sweet and sacred circle where two 
hearts grow to be one, where the mystery of birth 
and the hallowed faces of child and mother work 
their perpetual charm, comes that outer court of 
home, that third great circle which we call society. 
Surely and steadily the light of Christ is coming here, 
through the loving temperance Pentecost, to replace 
the empty phrase of punctilio by earnest words of 
cheer and inspiration; to banish the unhealthful 
tyranny of fashion by enthroning wholesome taste 
and common sense; to drive out questionable amuse- 
ments and introduce innocent and delightful 
pastimes; to exorcise the evil spirit of gossip and 
domesticate helpful and tolerant speech; nay, more, 
to banish from the social board those false emblems 
of hospitality and good-will — intoxicating drinks. 

Sweep a wider circle still, and behold in that 
ecclesiastical invention called denominationalism, 
Christ coming by the union of His handmaids in 
work for Him; coming to put away the form out- 
ward and visible that He may shed abroad the grace 
inward and spiritual; to close the theological 
disquisition of the learned pundit, and open the 
Bible of the humble saint; to draw away men's 
thoughts from theories of right living, and center 
them upon right living itself; to usher in the priest- 



THE DEFENDER OF HER FAITH 145 

hood of the people, by pressing upon the conscience 
of each believer the individual commission, "Go, 
disciple all nations," and emphasizing the individual 
promise, "Lo, I am with you alway." 

But the modern temperance movement, born of 
Christ's Gospel and cradled at His altars, is rapidly 
filling one more circle of influence wide as the widest 
zone of earthly weal or woe, and that is government. 
"The government shall be upon His shoulder." 
"Unto us a King is given." "He shall reign whose 
right it is." "He shall not fail, nor be discouraged 
until he hath set judgment in the earth." "That at 
the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every 
tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the 
glory of God the Father. " " Thy kingdom come, thy 
will be done on earth." Christ shall reign — not 
visibly, but invisibly; not in form, but in fact; not 
in substance, but in essence, and the day draws 
nigh ! Then surely the traffic in intoxicating liquors 
as a drink will no longer be protected by the statute 
book, the lawyer's plea, the affirmation of the 
witness, and the decision of the judge. And since the 
government is, after all, a circle that includes all 
hearts, all homes, all churches, all societies, does it 
not seem as if intelligent loyalty to Christ the King 
would cause each heart that loves Him to feel in 
duty bound to use all the power it could gather to 
itself in helping choose the framers of these more 
righteous laws? But let it be remembered that for 
every Christian man who has a voice in making and 
enforcing laws there are at least two Christian 
women who have no voice at all. Hence, under such 
circumstances as now exist, His militant army 



146 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

must ever be powerless to win those legislative 
battles which, more than any others, affect the 
happiness of aggregate humanity. But the light 
gleams already along the sunny Hilltops of the 
nineteenth century of grace. Upon those who in 
largest numbers love Him who has filled their hearts 
with peace and their homes with blessing slowly 
dawns the consciousness that they may — nay, 
better still, they ought to — ask for power to help 
forward the coming of their Lord in government; 
to throw the safeguard of their prohibition ballots 
around those who have left the shelter of their arms 
only to be entrapped by the saloons that bad men 
legalize and set along the streets. 

But some doubted. 

This was in our earlier National Conventions. 
Almost none disputed the value of this added weapon 
in woman's hand — indeed, all deemed it "sure to 
come." It was only the old, old question of expe- 
diency; of "frightening away our sisters among the 
more conservative." But later on we asked these 
questions: Has the policy of silence caused a great 
rallying to our camp from the ranks of the con- 
servative? Do you know an instance in which it 
has augmented your working force? Are not all 
the women upon whose help we can confidently 
count favorable to the "Do Everything Policy," as 
the only one broad enough to meet our hydra- 
headed foe? Have not the men of the liquor traffic 
said in platform, resolution, and secret circular, 
"The ballot in woman's hand will be the death-knell 
of our trade?" 

And so to-day, while each state is free to adopt 



THE DEFENDER OF HER FAITH 147 

or disavow the ballot as a home protection weapon, 
and although the white- winged fleet of the Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union in a score of states 
crowds all sail for constitutional prohibition, to be 
followed up by "Home Protection," still though "the 
silver sails are all out in the West," every ship in 
the gleaming line is all the same a Gospel ship — 
an "old ship Zion — Hallelujah!" 

Miss Willard was a profound student of all great 
philanthropic and social reforms having for their 
aim the betterment of the human race. "Each for 
all, that there may be no hindmost for the devil 
to take," expressed her belief in the final triumph 
of the Golden Rule in custom and in law. "Only 
the Golden Rule of Christ can bring the Golden 
Age of Man," another of her original epigrams, well 
describes what she was wont to term New Testa- 
ment socialism. The socialism which stands for 
the gospel of brotherhood, for the fundamental 
unity of humankind; socialism as set forth by the 
Great Teacher in the two "new commandments" 
— love to God and love to one's neighbor — Miss 
Willard ardently advocated. From her own high 
level she proclaimed the larger truth, the broader 
meaning of man's relation to man, and she realized, 
as do all consecrated souls, that the true socialistic 
idea must be written in the hearts of men and women 
by God's own finger before it can be fitly translated 
in terms of social and legal obligation. 



148 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

The social settlements, just blossoming into their 
perfectness as her life work was drawing to a close, 
commanded her highest admiration and good-will. 
"If there is a place nearer heaven than one of 
these settlements,' ' she exclaimed, "I have not yet 
found it." 

Miss Willard's study of the question of the 
relation of capital to labor was made largely in 
London and other large cities of England, and led to 
many ringing utterances on this vital theme. In 
London, in June, 1895, at the convention of the 
World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 
She referred to poverty as one of the prime causes 
of intemperance. This statement was misquoted in 
the literature of the Socialist party of America and 
Miss Willard was widely reported as saying that 
poverty caused intemperance in the same degree 
that intemperance caused poverty. 

In the autumn of the same year at the convention 
of the National Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union held in Baltimore, Maryland, she thus 
restated her position upon this mooted question: 

"Much criticism has been expended upon me for 
declaring in my third biennial address before the 
World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union in 
June last, that as temperance people we had been 
in error in not recognizing the relation of poverty 
to intemperance, and because I stated that while 



THE DEFENDER OF HER FAITH 149 

from the first I have maintained that intemperance 
causes poverty, I was now ready not only to re- 
iterate that cardinal doctrine, but to add that 
poverty causes intemperance. By that declaration, 
I am ready to stand or fall. It is an axiom, and will 
be admitted by every reasonable person. As 
temperance people we have not been in the habit of 
saying it, but everybody knows that it is true. I 
did not say that poverty causes intemperance in 
the same degree that intemperance causes poverty, 
nor do I think it does, but as we have not been wont 
to recognize poverty at all among the procuring 
causes of intemperance, it seems to me high time 
that we did." 

A FEW PARAGRAPHS FROM THE LONDON ADDRESS 

No matter how near the water in the boiler 
comes to being steam, it will not move the locomo- 
tive one inch until it is steam: that elastic, invisible, 
impenetrable, and irresistible power. Love is like 
that; it cannot be withstood; its God-like flame burns 
away the dross of policy in the pure white light of 
principle. Nothing less will ever fuse the hearts of 
men in those reforms by which the Gospel of Christ 
becomes regnant in the world. We have all things 
but love, when love is all we want. Men go about 
smiling whose hearts are like lumps of ice in their 
breasts. If we had love, the slums of London would 
not last another day. If we had love, each family in 
London and New York that has a margin beyond its 



150 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

necessities would agree to help some other family; 
each independent person, someone else; and this 
single determination, quietly made and practically 
illustrated by a visit to the baker and the tailor, 
would put everyone beyond the reach of want before 
the sun went down. 

Joy is the outcome of balanced faculties and 
an environment that presses its good gifts equally 
upon all. Anything short of this shows that sweet 
bells are jangled. The ardent, endless aspiration of 
the human spirit is for nothing less than joy. It is 
the chief charm of intoxicating liquors that they 
seem to bring this for a season ; and of impurity that 
it is joy's deadliest counterfeit. But what if uni- 
versal man should find, as a result of the combined 
work of countless light-bringers through the un- 
counted ages, that we can only "take joy home" 
into a brain as normal as that of the bird in yonder 
tree-top or the swan upon the smiling lake below? 
What if he should find that only by bringing the 
very best the world contains to everybody else can 
he ever really come to the very best himself? What 
if man should grow so great as to desire the equal 
comradeship of the gentle partner of his gladness and 
his grief? What if they should go hand in hand 
through all the fields of education, art, society, 
and government? What if there should be some 
day no rich, educated, and titled, no poor, ignorant, 
and debased? 

The time will come when the human heart will 
be so much alive that no one could sleep in any 
given community if any in that group of human 
beings were cold, hungry, or miserable. But now 



THE DEFENDER OF HER FAITH 151 

we not only carry on our lives within actual sight 
and sound of untold misery, shame, and sin, but we 
are not sufficiently disturbed by it to be hindered 
in our pleasures or ambitions. 

While we sleep a thousand hands are busy for us, 
gathering up materials for our morning meal, pass- 
ing on our letters by the swift train, printing our 
mental breakfast on the broad pages of the daily 
press. A thousand hands are moving in countries 
where the sun shines while we sleep in the shadow 
of the darkness here, that we may have cloth for our 
next new suit, rapid transit when we leave home, 
books to brighten our minds, music to mellow our 
hearts. The brains of inventors are busy with 
contrivances that annihilate distance and literally 
kill time; the minds of statesmen are planning better 
laws; the minds of philosophers are searching out 
the reasons of things. There is much truth and 
goodness in the world already, or these things could 
not be done; and, best of all, the people are stirring 
in their sleep. Some day the great world-mind, 
tutored and taught, will lend its mighty force to each 
child of humanity. Some time the great world- 
heart will enfold each baby that is born. Some 
time the great world-hand will open itself, and every 
living creature shall be fed. It is God's miracle, 
and it spreads over the earth so slowly that we take 
it as a matter of course. It comes to us broadly and 
brightly, as the sunshine comes, this dawning 
revelation, as a fact not as a dream, that "One is 
your Father, even God," and "all ye are brethren." 



CHAPTER X 

FOUNDER OF THE WORLD'S WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN 
TEMPERANCE UNION 

Frances E. Willard was a patriot of patriots. 
Love for her fatherland, breathed into her as a child, 
waxed stronger as the years passed by until it 
became a passion, and her home-loving heart turned 
more and more to her "ain countrie." But she 
could never be a patriot in the sense in which love for 
one's own country excludes love for all other coun- 
tries, and as her affection for her native land deepened 
and broadened, it included all other lands until she 
exultantly heralded the coming day when Humanity 
shall recognize its brotherhood not in word only, but 
in deed; when "the parliament of man, the federation 
of the world" shall be more than a poet's dream — a 
gloriously established fact. 

Miss Willard 's first public mention of her aspira- 
tion toward a world-wide organization of Christian 
women was made in 1875, in Our Union, then the 
official organ of the National Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union. But the time was evidently 
not ripe for such a movement. Seven years later, 
in 1883, Miss Willard wrote: "On an organizing 

152 




POUNDER WORLDS WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN 
TEMPERANCE UNION 



FOUNDER OF WORLD'S W. C. T. U. 153 

trip to the Pacific Coast and the Puget Sound region, 
Anna Gordon and I visited the famous Chinatown 
of San Francisco, saw the opium den in all its 
loathsomeness standing next door to the house of 
shame. Reputable Chinese women were not allowed 
to accompany their husbands to California, but here 
were Chinese girls, one in each of many small cabins 
with sliding doors and windows on the street, con- 
stituting the most flagrantly flaunted temptation. 
In presence of these two object lessons, the result of 
Occidental avarice and Oriental degradation, there 
came to me a distinct illumination resulting in this 
solemn decision: 'But for the intervention of the 
sea, the shores of China and the far East would be 
part and parcel of our land. We are one world of 
tempted humanity. The mission of the white- 
ribbon women is to organize the motherhood of the 
world for the peace and purity, the protection and 
exaltation of its homes. We must send forth a clear 
call to our sisters yonder, and our brothers, too. We 
must be no longer hedged about by the artificial 
boundaries of states and nations; we must utter, as 
women, what good and great men long ago declared 
as their watchword : ' The whole world is my parish 
and to do good my religion. ' " 

"In my Annual Address the next autumn at 
Detroit, this, which I believe to be one of those 
revelations from God that come to us all in hours of 



154 



FRANCES E. WILLARD 



special spiritual uplift, was frankly placed before 
my comrades who, although they had no special 
enthusiasm, agreed to have the five General Officers 
constitute a committee to see what could be done. 
Two months later, Mrs. Mary Clement Leavitt, of 
Boston, Massachusetts, already one of our national 
organizers, and who was on her way to the Pacific 
Coast when the sights of San Francisco had burned 
themselves into my brain, had accepted a commission 
to make a tour of reconnoissance around the world. 
. . . A year after Mrs. Leavitt's departure, while 
following her in my thought, I read a book on the 
opium trade in India and China, and under the 
impulse of its unspeakable recitals I wrote the 
Polyglot Petition, feeling that she must have not 
only the Crusade story to tell, with its sober second 
thought of organization under the Woman's Chris- 
tian Temperance Union, the plan of organization to 
describe, the white ribbon to pin above ten thousand 
faithful women's hearts, the noon hour of prayer to 
impress upon their spirits the sense of that divine 
impulse which alone can give an enduring enthu- 
siasm in any cause — but she must speak to them 
of something to be done, and to be done at once, in 
which all alike could engage in England, America, 
the Oriental nations, the islands of the sea and, so 
far as possible, in the continent of Europe, whose 
great wine-growing countries render it the least and 



FOUNDER OF WORLDS W. C. T. U. 155 

last of all in temperance reform. A petition against 
the liquor traffic and the opium trade asking that 
the statutes of the world should be lifted to the level 
of Christian morals realized to my thought 'the 
tie that binds* thousands of hearts and hands in 
one common work, for the uplift of humanity, and 
included that 'White Life for Two,' which has since 
become an integral part of our work." 

The pioneer round-the-world white-ribbon mis- 
sionaries who have gone out under the banner of 
the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union 
are Miss Jessie Ackermann (California), who honey- 
combed Australia with local unions, federating them 
into a National Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union of their own, of which she became president, 
and who also traversed all the Oriental countries, and 
in her seven years of journeying covered a distance 
nearly equal to seven times around the world; Mrs. 
Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Dr. Kate C. Bush- 
nell (Evanston, Illinois), whose work resulted in the 
breaking down of the system of legalized vice in the 
Indian Empire and brought to light the hidden 
things of darkness in the opium trade of India and 
China; Miss Mary Allen West (Illinois), who fell 
at her post in far-away Japan after a few weeks of 
heroic exertion, leaving a memory hallowed by all 
good people in the beautiful Empire; Mrs. Clara 
Parrish Wright (Illinois), who was the first missionary 



156 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

to go out from the ranks of the young women, 
taking up the work where Miss West laid it down; 
Miss Alice Palmer, who remained nearly three years 
in South Africa, placing the Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union of that great country on a firm 
and enduring basis. 

Since 1897, many Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union missionaries and representatives have been 
sent out by the World's Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Union. It was the privilege of some, with 
courage and enthusiasm, to strengthen organizations 
already formed, while others have traveled and 
lectured in countries that never before had listened 
to the white-ribbon gospel. 

The World's Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union is now organized in fifty nations — in America 
(North and South), England, Europe, Asia, Africa, 
Australia, and many islands of the sea. "It could 
never have been established," said Frances Willard, 
"but for the co-operation of Christian missionaries, 
who are undoubtedly the best exponents of the gospel 
that the church has to show. * May my right hand 
forget its cunning' when it ceases to indite their 
praise. It is a good thing to find out all that is 
helpful in the beliefs of Oriental nations, but they 
will strive in vain to give us any record of Christ- 
like deeds that is at all comparable to that made by 
our brothers and sisters who, leaving home and 



FOUNDER OF WORLD'S W. C. T. U. 157 

friends, have consecrated their lives to making 
known in these same countries the unsearchable 
riches of Christ, among which the hallowed home 
of purity and peace stands first of all." 

Our leader, to whom belonged from first to last 
the inspiration and plan of this great society, was 
long ago described in the words of the apostle, 
"Always looking for and hastening unto the coming 
of the day of our Lord." 

The Polyglot Petition is a notable instance of 
Miss Willard's power to pierce the future and her 
ability to plan for generations yet unborn. 

She named this document "The Polyglot Petition 
for Home Protection," and addressed it, "To the 
Governments of the World (Collectively and 
Severally). " The following is its text: 

Honored Rulers, Representatives i , and Brothers: 

We, your petitioners, although belonging to the 
physically weaker sex, are strong of heart to love 
our homes, our native land, and the world's family 
of nations. We know that clear brains and pure 
hearts make honest lives and happy homes, and that 
by these the nations prosper and the time is brought 
nearer when the world shall be at peace. We know 
that indulgence in alcohol and opium, and in other 
vices which disgrace our social life, makes misery 
for all the world, and most of all for us and for our 
children. We know that stimulants and opiates 
are sold under legal guarantees which make the 



158 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

governments partners in the traffic by accepting as 
revenue a portion of the profits, and we know with 
shame that they are often forced by treaty upon 
populations either ignorant or unwilling. We know 
that the law might do much now left undone to 
raise the moral tone of society and render vice 
difficult. We have no power to prevent these great 
iniquities, beneath which the whole world groans, 
but you have power to redeem the honor of the 
nations from an indefensible complicity. We, 
therefore, come to you with the united voices of 
representative women of every land, beseeching you 
to raise the standard of the law to that of Christian 
morals, to strip away the safeguards and sanction 
of the State from the drink traffic and the opium 
trade, and to protect our homes by the total pro- 
hibition of these curses of civilization throughout all 
the territory over which your Government extends. 

This petition, written in Miss Willard's "den" in 
Evans ton in the year 1884, was first presented to a 
convention by Mrs. Mary Bannister Willard, at the 
International Temperance Congress in Antwerp, 
Belgium, September 12, 1885. At the first conven- 
tion of the World's Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union, its significant folds draped the walls of 
historic Faneuil Hall, Boston, and in Tremont 
Temple during the session of the National Conven- 
tion immediately following. Its first formal presen- 
tation was in Washington, D. C, February 15, 1895, 
where it decorated the great Convention Hall 



FOUNDER OF WORLD'S W. C. T. U. 159 

holding seven thousand persons. Miss Willard's 
masterly address on that occasion, which embodies 
a complete history of the petition up to that time, 
is here partly reproduced : 

Home protection is the keyword of woman's 
work. Manufacturers seek the tariff for the purpose 
of protection to industries, adult and infant; trades 
unions are founded to protect the wage-earners from 
the aggressions of capital, and corporations and 
monopolies to protect from the encroachment of 
competition; but ten thousand groups of loyal- 
hearted mothers and wives, sisters and daughters 
have been formed for the purpose of acting in an 
organized capacity as protectors of their homes, as 
guardians for innocent childhood and tempted 
youth. For this cause "there are bands of ribbon 
white around the world," and this Polyglot Petition 
is but our prayer that "tells out" a purpose of our 
hearts and heads wrought into a plea before the 
nations of the world. It is the protest of the world's 
wifehood and motherhood, its sisterhood and 
daughterhood — a protest "in sorrow, not in anger." 

We expect to present this petition to represent- 
atives of every civilized government. This cannot 
be done in the usual form, because when once 
received this Magna Charta of the home would 
become the property of the various legislatures and 
parliaments, and our plan requires that it be con- 
veyed from one to another. We are also aware that 
in a legal and technical sense no government accepts 
the signatures of those outside its own boundaries. 
We have therefore preferred to make our petition 



160 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

a great popular testimonial against the enemies of 
the home, but we expect that its presentation will 
give an added impetus to progressive legislation 
against the liquor traffic, the opium trade, the gam- 
bling den, and the house of shame. 

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union has 
circulated many petitions. The number of sig- 
natures and attestations secured throughout the 
world to our different petitions in the last twenty 
years aggregates not fewer than fifteen millions of 
names — probably twenty millions would be nearer 
the truth. In this estimate I include the memorials 
and petitions for Scientific Temperance Education 
in the public schools ; also for laws raising the age of 
consent and otherwise involving the better protec- 
tion of women, not to speak of the anti-cigarette 
crusade and numberless local petitions circulated 
by the faithful hands of white-ribbon women. We 
are, therefore, veterans in our knowledge of petition 
work, and for this reason are perfectly aware that the 
best outcome of such undertakings is the agitation 
and consequent education that come to those who 
affix their signatures, or who by resolution make the 
prayer of the petition their own. For example, in 
the State of Illinois, in 1878, we circulated a Home 
Protection Petition, asking that "since woman is 
the born conservator of home, and the nearest 
natural protector of her children, she should have a 
voice in the decision by which the dramshop is 
opened or is closed over against her home." Two 
hundred thousand names were secured in a few 
weeks, some of us traveling from town to town for 
this purpose, and remaining for months at Spring- 



FOUNDER OF WORLD'S W. C. T. U. 161 

field, the capital, in the hope that the legislature 
would adopt the Hinds Bill, based upon this 
righteous plea. I need not say that we were wholly 
unsuccessful with that legislature. Not for that 
end was it born; not for that cause did it sit in the 
great state house among the cornfields of the Prairie 
State and near the tomb of the immortal Abraham 
Lincoln. 

We prize the Polyglot Petition work because it 
has afforded a nucleus around which women may 
rally. It has furnished immediate work to new and 
distant societies which was essential to their success. 
The petition has also been the peg upon which have 
been paragraphs and presentation speeches, sermons 
and songs in every part of Christendom — and the 
end is not yet; nay, the beginning is hardly here. 
Because we are patriots we have come to the capital 
of our native land to present this petition, first of 
all, in the country in which it originated, and which 
has sent out all the white-ribbon missionaries who 
have secured its circulation in foreign countries. 
The greatest number of names, indorsements, and 
attestations has been secured in our own country, 
and next to ours in Great Britain. We could not 
have secured signatures in Oriental countries but 
for the co-operation of the denominational mis- 
sionaries who have been most faithful and devoted. 

The signatures came to hand in fifty languages; 
they were of all sorts and sizes, and were trimmed 
and prepared for mounting as compactly as possible 
on interminable webs of muslin, one-half yard in 
width, one edge of which is bound with red, and the 
other with blue ribbon — red, white, and blue being 



162 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

the prevalent colors of the flags of all nations and 
the symbolic badges of the great temperance move- 
ment of modern times. 

The names are necessarily mounted somewhat 
irregularly, but they average four columns abreast, 
making, in reality, a quadruple petition, with about 
one hundred names to the yard in each column, 
making five miles of names written solidly, one 
under the other — 771,200 in all. This is exclusive 
of about 350,000 names that came from Great 
Britain already mounted, making the total of 
1,121,200 actual names on the document that will 
be submitted to President Cleveland. Besides these, 
there are hundreds of thousands of names yet wait- 
ing to be added to the long roll. 

It must be remembered that the signatures to 
this petition are of three kinds : First, the names of 
women; second, the written indorsements of men; 
third, the attestations of officers of societies which 
have indorsed the petition by resolution or other- 
wise. The document has been circulated in fifty 
nations, and in the three ways stated has received 
over 7,000,000 signatures. The total number of 
actual signers from outside the United States is 
480,000. Great Britain, with Lady Henry Somer- 
set's name at the head, leads the procession with its 
350,000. Canada comes next with 67,000. Burma 
with 32,000, and Ceylon, Australia, Denmark, China, 
India, and Mexico follow, with all the others coming 
after. 

Though this is a woman's petition, it should be 
noted that it is indorsed by perhaps 1,000,000 men 
— some by personal signatures, but the greater 
number by the attestation of the officers of societies 



FOUNDER OF WORLD'S W. C. T. U. 163 

to which they belong. Even from far-off Ceylon, 
which we are accustomed to think of as a small island 
of dusky savages, come the signatures of 27,000 men 
who call for the cessation of the liquor and opium 
traffic. The following are the countries represented 
by this petition: 

United States — forty-eight states, Hawaiian 
Islands and Alaska; Canada — Nova Scotia, New 
Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ontario, 
Manitoba and British Columbia; Newfoundland, 
Mexico, Jamaica, Bahamas, Madeira, Brazil, Chile, 
Uruguay, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, 
Holland, Belgium, Denmark, N©rway, Sweden, 
Spain, Russia, Finland, Turkey, Bulgaria, China, 
Japan, India, Burma, Siam, Korea, Ceylon, Egypt, 
Congo Free State, Transvaal, West and South 
Africa, Angola, Madagascar, Mozambique, Victoria, 
South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, 
Tasmania, New Zealand. 

To enumerate the languages in whose characters 
the beliefs of women have been recorded in this far- 
reaching document would be to make a list of almost 
every tongue that has survived the confusion of 
Babel. The total, counting men's and women's 
signatures, indorsements, and attestations, aggregates 
seven and one half millions. 

In making this petition, we claim we are entirely 
constitutional, inasmuch as the right to sign "has 
not been denied or abridged on account of race, 
color, or previous condition of servitude." Perhaps 
this is the reason why we have secured many names 
of reformed men, and why Catholic, Protestant, and 
pagan have all been represented. 

It would be invidious to mention the names of 



164 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

signers, but they represent every grade of human 
life, and the great procession is headed by the name 
of Neal Dow, the father of prohibitory law, who 
signed when over ninety years of age. Scientists 
teach that every signature involves some touch of 
personality, not only in the appearance of the auto- 
graph itself, but by the impartation of individual 
particles that surround everyone, and which project 
themselves into every deed that we perform. That 
this is true is more than likely, so that when we con- 
sider that every nation, tribe, and people of the earth, 
almost, is represented; when we reflect that these 
infinitely varied autographs representing persons 
born and bred under equally varying conditions have 
found in this petition against the greatest curses of 
the world their focusing point, there is reason to 
believe that by God's good providence we have in 
the Polyglot Petition the promise and potency of the 
better time when, by the personal interdict of a higher 
intelligence and the conclusive law of social custom, 
the sale of intoxicating drinks and opium shall be 
banned and banished from the world. In that day 
the laws for which the great petition asks and which 
we believe must be enacted as the most cogent means 
of education for the people will no longer be re- 
quired, but every human being will enact in the 
legislature of his own intellect a prohibitory law for 
one and enforce that law by the executive of his own 
will. 

"It will come by and by, when the race out of 
childhood has grown." 

It is more than ten years since the petition was 
written; if I had to rewrite it I should assuredly in- 



FOUNDER OF WORLD'S W. C. T. U. 165 

elude the enfranchisement of women among the 
requisites it specifies, for I believe that our Heavenly 
Father will not suffer men alone to work out the 
great redemption of the race from the bewilderment 
of drink, the hallucination of opium, and the brutal 
delirium of impurity. Hand in hand we have 
traversed the Sahara of ignorance and escaped from 
the City of Destruction; hand in hand let us mount 
the heights of knowledge, purity, and peace. 

The personal presentation of the petition to Presi- 
dent Cleveland at the White House was made on the 
afternoon of February 19, 1895, the General Officers 
of the World's and National Woman's Christian 
Temperance Unions with the President of the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia being granted an interview at the 
Executive Mansion. Miss Willard spoke as follows : 

Mr. President: The Polyglot Petition, ad- 
dressed to the governments of the world, and calling 
for the prohibition of the traffic in alcoholic liquors 
as a drink, the prohibition of the opium traffic and 
all forms of legalized social vice, has been signed 
by half a million citizens of this republic; by means 
of signatures, indorsements, and attestations it 
includes seven and a half million adherents in fifty 
different nationalities. This petition has been cir- 
culated by the World's Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Union, and will be presented to all the lead- 
ing governments. Inasmuch as the petition origina- 
ted and has been most largely signed in the United 



166 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

States, it is hereby respectfully brought to your 
attention, not on any legal ground, but because it is 
addressed to the governments of the world, and you 
are the executive chief of this Government. 

After putting a copy of the petition into the Presi- 
dent's hands, the Recording Secretary of the Nation- 
al Woman's Christian Temperance Union read the 
document with remarkable impressiveness, and 
Miss Willard resumed: 

Mr. President: We are aware that the petition 
just read in your hearing cannot come before you as 
a legal document, but rather as an expression of the 
opinion and sentiment of a great multitude of your 
countrywomen who believe that if its prayer were 
granted the better protection of the home would be 
secured. Knowing how difficult it was for you to 
grant us this hearing at a time when you are even 
more than usually weighted with great responsi- 
bilities, we have foreborne to bring the Great Peti- 
tion to the White House. Permit me to hand you 
this attested copy and to thank you on behalf of 
this delegation, representing the Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union in this and other lands, for the 
kind reception you have given to our delegation. 

In the following spring the petition was taken to 
London and was the central feature of the Third 
Biennial Convention of the World's Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union. In Prince Albert 
Hall, where the monster demonstration meeting was 



FOUNDER OF WORLD'S W. C. T. U. 167 

held, its countless folds encircled galleries and plat- 
form like a huge white ribbon into which had been 
woven the symbolic badges of the great host of 
women who in every land are publishing the tidings 
of purity and total abstinence. Lady Henry Somer- 
set presented to Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, two 
richly bound and illuminated volumes containing 
the text of the petition with the signatures of such 
of her loyal subjects as were among its signers. 

In 1897 the great rolls crossed the ocean again to 
adorn Massey Music Hall, Toronto, on the occasion 
of the Fourth World's Woman's Christian Temper- 
ance Union Convention. Miss Willard did not live 
to fulfill her earnest desire to present the petition to 
the Canadian Government, and Mrs. Lillian M. N. 
Stevens ably represented her at a great meeting 
held in Ottawa, presided over by Sir Wilfrid Laurier. 
Frances E. Willard has left this petition as a precious 
legacy to her white-ribbon sisters, as well as an 
object lesson to the world of the marvelous dimen- 
sions to which an idea may obtain. 

At the Toronto Convention of the World's 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Miss Wil- 
lard's faith in the ultimate outcome of twenty-four 
years of heroic struggle shone with undimmed luster. 
She presided magnificently, and never was it more 
apparent that she held in her little hand both ends 
of the white ribbon that belts the globe. It was a 



168 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

notable address that she delivered the first morning 
of the Convention, and it was her last message to 
her white-ribbon sisters of the World's Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union. The concluding 
paragraph is given: 

One day a young nobleman on horseback rode 
impatiently up and down the streets of a village in 
Cornwall. He was seeking for a public house where 
he could get a glass of that concerning which our 
Shakespeare said, "Alas, that men should put an 
enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains." 
But his search was vain, and coming upon a white- 
haired peasant on his way home, after a day of toil, 
the young man said with rising anger, "Why is it 
that I cannot get a glass of liquor in this wretched 
little village? " The old man recognized to whom he 
was to speak, and taking off his cap made his humble 
obeisance and replied, "My lord, about a hundred 
years ago, a man named John Wesley came to these 
parts" — and the old peasant walked on. "A 
hundred years," and he was living still, that daunt- 
less, devoted disciple of our Lord! Cornwall has 
never been the same since John Wesley went there 
to preach the gospel of a clear brain and a conse- 
crated heart. Of whom will such great words be 
spoken when a century has passed in those dear 
countries of the English-speaking race, from which 
most of us have come? Who doubts but that in 
Maine some good man going to his safe and happy 
home will be saying in answer to some unfriendly 
wight, vexed because he cannot get his dram, "A 



FOUNDER OF WORLD'S W. C. T. U. 169 

hundred years ago a man named Neal Dow came to 
these parts?" 

Who does not believe that in Canada some loyal 
voice will give the explanation, "A hundred years 
ago Letitia Youmans came to these parts? " Verily, 
comrades, we are building better than we know. It 
is a holy thing, this influence that reaches on and 
away into illimitable distance; this coming to be one 
of the wheels within the wheels that are the wheels of 
God. For it is said, "The wheels were full of eyes, " 
and these eyes are on us when we know it not; they 
see us when we wake and when we sleep. 



CHAPTER XI 
A GREAT MOTHER 

"There are not many men, and as yet but few 
women, of whom when you think or speak it occurs 
to you that they are great," said Miss Willard. 
"What is the line that could mark such a sphere? 
To my mind it must include this trinity — great- 
ness of thought, of heart, of will. There have been 
men and women concerning whose greatness of 
intellect none disputed, but they were poverty- 
stricken in the region of the affections, or they were 
Lilliputians in the realm of will. There have been 
mighty hearts, beating strong and full as a ship's 
engine, but they were mated to a * straightened 
forehead.' There have been Napoleonic wills, but 
unbalanced by strong power of thought and senti- 
ment — they were like a cyclone or a wandering 
star. It takes force centrifugal and force centripetal 
to balance and hold a character to the ellipse of a 
true orbit. 

"My mother, my Saint Courageous, was great 
in the sense of this majestic symmetry. The classic 
writer who said, * I am human, and whatever touches 
humanity touches me,' could not have been more 

170 



A GREAT MOTHER 171 

worthy to utter the words than was this Methodist 
cosmopolite who spoke them to me within a few 
days of her ascent to heaven. She had no pettiness. 
It was the habit of her mind to study subjects from 
the point of harmony. She did not say, 'Wherein 
does this Baptist or this Presbyterian differ from 
the creed in which I have been reared?* But it 
was as natural to her as it is to a rose to give forth 
fragrance to say to herself and others: 'Wherein 
does this Presbyterian or Baptist harmonize with 
the views that are dear to me?' Then she dwelt 
upon that harmony and through it brought those 
about her into oneness of sympathy with herself. 
She was occupied with great themes. I never 
heard a word of gossip from her lips. She had no 
time for it. Her life illustrated the poet's line: 
'There is no finer flower on this green earth than courage.' 
"My mother had courage of intellect and heart, 
and physical courage as well, beyond any other 
woman that I have known. ' We are saved by hope,' 
was the motto of her life. 'This is our part, and 
all the part we have,' she used to say. 'The exist- 
ence and love of God are the pulse of our being, 
whether we live or die.' 

"Some characters have a great and varied land- 
scape, and a light like that of Raphael's pictures; 
others show forth some strong, single feature in a 
light like that of Rembrandt; some have head- 



172 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

lands and capes, bays and skies, meadows and prai- 
ries and seas. The more scenery there is in a char- 
acter, the greater it is — the more it ranges from 
the amusing to the sublime. My mother's nature 
had in it perspective, atmosphere, landscape of 
earth and sky. 

"She was not given to introspection, which is so 
often the worm in the bud of genius. 'They are 
not great who counsel with their fears.' Applied 
Christianity was the track along which the energy 
of her nature was driven by the Divine Spirit. She 
would have been just as great whether the world 
had ever learned of it or not. 'Mute Miltons' 
are not all 'inglorious,' and however small the 
circle might have been in which she spent her days, 
she whom we loved and for awhile have lost would 
inevitably have been recognized as one adequate to 
the ruling of a state or a nation with mild and master- 
ly sway. The fortunes of the great white-ribbon 
cause gave her a pedestal to stand upon. She had 
been, in her beautiful home, a mother so beloved 
that she drew all her household toward her as the 
sun does the planets round about him, but she be- 
came a mother to our whole army. She came to 
the kingdom for a sorrowful time, when homes 
were shadowed over all the land and her motherly 
nature found a circle as wide as the shadow cast 
upon the republic by the nation's dark eclipse. 



A GREAT MOTHER 173 

Perhaps, until then, she had not been a radical so 
pronounced as she became in these later battle 
years, but what she saw and learned and suffered, 
out in the cross-currents of society and the great 
world, made her as strong a believer in the emancipa- 
tion of woman as any person whom I have ever 
met. She had no harsh word for anybody; no 
criticism on the past. She recognized the present 
situation as the inevitable outcome of. the age of 
force, but her great soul was suffused to its last 
fiber with the enthusiasm for woman. She be- 
lieved in her sex; she had pride in it; she regarded 
its capacities of mental and moral improvement 
as illimitable, but at the same time she was a de- 
voted friend to men. How could she be other- 
wise with a husband true and loyal and with a loving 
and genial son? All her ideas upon the woman 
question were but a commentary upon her devotion 
to that larger human question which is the great 
circle of which the woman question is but an arc. 
Oftentimes I have said to myself, * If this temperance 
movement had come to women in her day what a 
great magnetic leader she would have been. How 
wholly she would have given herself to the Woman 's 
Christian Temperance Union, seeing in it the out- 
come of all her hopes and prophecies, for the pro- 
tection of the home and the regnancy of * two heads 
in counsel, two beside the hearth.'" 



174 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

The following reference to Madam Willard's 
charming methods of child culture is given by her 
daughter : 

"She never expected us to be bad children. I 
never heard her refer to total depravity as our in- 
evitable heritage; she always said when we were 
cross, * Where is my bright little girl that is so 
pleasant to have about? Somebody must have 
taken her away and left this little creature here 
who has a scowl upon her face.' She always ex- 
pected us to do well; and after a long and beautiful 
life, when she was sitting in sunshine calm and 
sweet at eighty -seven years of age, she said to one 
who asked what she would have done differently 
as a mother if she had her life to live over again, 
*I should blame less and praise more.' She used 
to say that a little child is a figure of pathos. With- 
out volition of its own, it finds itself in a most difficult 
scene; it looks around on every side for help, and 
we who are grown way-wise should make it feel at 
all times tenderly welcome, and nourish it in the 
fruitful atmosphere of love, trust, and approbation. 

"With such a mother, my home life was full of 
inspiration; she encouraged every out-branching 
thought and purpose. When I wished to play out- 
of-doors with my brother, and do the things he did, 
she never said, 'Oh, that is not for girls!' but en- 
couraged him to let me be his little comrade; by 



A GREAT MOTHER 175 

which means he became the most considerate, 
chivalric boy I ever knew, for mother taught him 
that nothing could be more for her happiness and 
his than that he should be good to * little sister.' 
By this means I spent a great deal of time in the 
open air, and learned the pleasant sports by which 
boys store up vigor for the years to come. She 
used to take me on her knee and teach me the poems 
of which she was most fond, explaining what the 
poet meant, so that even at an early age I could 
understand much that was dear to her. Then she 
would place me — a fragile little figure — on a 
chair or table, and have me repeat these poems, 
'suiting the action to the word.' Once when a 
neighbor came in and told her that Frankie was 
standing on the gatepost making a speech, and 
warned her that she must curb my curious taste, 
mother ran out delighted, took me in her arms, and 
without criticising me for having chosen such a 
public pedestal, told me she thought I would better 
say my 'pieces' to her rather than to anyone who 
might be passing bj% because she understood them 
better and could help me to speak them right. 

"To my mind, the jewel of her character and 
method with her children was that she knew how 
without effort to keep an open way always between 
her inmost heart and theirs; they wanted no other 
comforter; everybody seemed less desirable than 



176 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

mother. If something very pleasant happened to us 
when we were out playing with other children, or 
spending an afternoon at a neighbor's, we would 
scamper home as fast as our little feet would carry 
us, because we did not feel as if we had gained the 
full happiness from anything that came to us until 
mother knew it." 

Sir Walter Scott tells a story of a orave young 
knight in whose soul burned the Crusader's passion 
to rescue from the infidels ' defiling hands the tomb 
of his hero-Christ. Girding on shield and buckler 
and sword, he knelt before the woman who through 
the years had given her life to him in lavishment of 
mother-love and claimed her mother-blessing on his 
eager heart's desire. With never a falter of voice 
or a sob to betray her anguish of grief and fear, 
with never a tremble in the hand that touched his 
bright young head, with only courage in tender tone 
and touch, she sent him forth, inspired by her bless- 
ing under the banner of her love. In his garments 
she hid her jewels against his hour of need, and 
with the promise that she would stay at home and 
guard for him his castle and his lands, she bade him 
depart, remembering that his glory was to redress 
human wrongs, to keep a spotless sword and soul. 
When many years had come and gone and the 
youth returned crowned with victories won on 
many a field where he had vanquished wrong, he 



A GREAT MOTHER 177 

found his castle and his lands better cared for than 
when he left, his people taught to reverence his 
name and to love him for his knightly deeds. 

This beautiful picture of the Scottish novelist 
but faintly sets forth the work of that noble mother, 
"Saint Courageous," who, when the daughter went 
forth the "Knight of a New Chivalry," kept the 
fires of love burning brightly upon her hearth, kept 
the light in the window for the brave daughter who 
went forth on her crusade pilgrimages, not to save 
an empty tomb, but to rescue the living Christ in 
human hearts from the enemies that defile the 
temple of God. 

To the music of the Traveler's Psalm (Ps. cxxi), 
accompanied by the strong, tender voice of com- 
mending prayer, Mother Willard sent forth her 
apostle of sweetness and purity and light, even as 
of old that English mother commended her young 
knight to the guidance of Him who had promised 
victory to all who war against iniquity and sin. And 
to that heart and home the gentle conqueror hasten- 
ed back less like a victor to claim her own than like 
a bird to its sheltering nest. Here one month at 
least of every year was given to her mother, that 
the springs of love and hope and inspiration might 
be refilled. Sitting by the fire with clasped hands, 
the mother would give to her daughter reminiscences 
of her early life, telling of the beautiful Christian 



178 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

traits of her father and mother; recalling to mind 
the older home in Vermont; describing the noble 
hills upon which her windows looked; recounting 
the way she spent her days, the morning hours 
given to books and study, the afternoons to weav- 
ing, spinning, and household cares, the evenings 
spent again about the fireside, until when nine 
o'clock struck, the entire household assembled 
while her father read from the dear old Bible and, 
by the force of fervent prayer, drew them all with- 
in the circle of divine protection and love. Often 
the household saint would break forth into words of 
gratitude for the long life that had been so rich in 
opportunity, so blessed with friendships and affec- 
tion. Often she rejoiced in the good gift of the 
uninterrupted strength that enabled her to fill all 
the years with toil. Neither mother nor daughter 
was ever able to brook the thought of invalidism; 
they could not bear to think of rivers that die away 
in the sand before their force is spent. They wished 
rather to resemble those streams which run full- 
breasted to the sea, and bear to the ocean upon their 
bosoms fleets of prosperity and of peace. 

" I must keep well for the sake of my daughter and 
the work God has given her to do," would say this 
sympathetic mother, who in her seventieth year 
led the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of 
her own town. If the daughter encircled the world 



A GREAT MOTHER 179 

with the white ribbon of love and sympathy, the 
threads of that shining strand were surely spun in 
the warp and woof of her mother's loving care. 

Each passing season as the years sped on found 
her more and more the child of happiness and hope. 
Pilgrims from the noble army of workers who turned 
from life's fret and fever to seek an hour apart in 
Rest Cottage, will remember the sunny upper room 
which all looked upon as the chamber of peace. 
Its tranquillity was the atmosphere exhaled by the 
sweet spirit of this woman of courage and of buoyant 
optimism, this self-sustained soul, whose quietness 
and assurance were her strength. 

In that chamber bright with her presence one 
always found Madam Willard with a serene smile 
upon her face and a word of good cheer trembling 
on her lips. On the tables around her were grouped 
her favorite authors, scrapbooks upon which she 
was working, letters and documents intended to 
further the beloved cause of reform. During her 
daughter's long absences, Madam Willard was lov- 
ingly ministered to by the white-ribbon sisters who 
for many years made a home for themselves in the 
addition to Rest Cottage, built and formerly oc- 
cupied by Mrs. Mary B. Willard. 

Recalling her first visit to Rest Cottage in October, 
1891, Lady Henry Somerset, whom Madam Willard 
fondly called her "English daughter," writes: 



180 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

" When I came to your shores a stranger a year ago 
the name of Frances Willard was as familiar to me 
as it is to women all over the world who are in any 
way associated with works of philanthopy or the 
upbuilding of the home. I had read her life and 
had some knowledge of her work, and with that 
work of course her mother's name was closely 
associated. But only when I crossed the threshold 
of Rest Cottage could I realize what a factor that 
mother had been in her great career. I have mingled 
with those who are called noble because of hereditary 
descent; I have talked with empresses and queens, 
with princesses and princes, but when I took the 
hand of Madam Willard and she welcomed me to 
her heart and home, I knew instantly and instinct- 
ively that here was one of the world 's great women. 
A lady of such fine, delicate instinct, with a mind so 
cultivated and purified by continued aspiration 
toward the good and true; with a face serene and 
full of all that inherent worth which came to her 
through her spotless ancestry and her own natural 
purity and refinement, I at once classed with all 
the greatest and noblest that I had ever met. I 
need not dwell here upon the way in which that home 
circle impressed me, but as I turn the pages of my 
Bible, I find a note entered there which I wrote the 
first night on which I came beneath that roof: 
* October 28, 1891 — A day to be remembered in 
thanksgiving. Rest Cottage, Evanston.'" 

Mrs. Willard 's mind was stored with much of 
the best English prose and verse, of which in her 
rhythmic, expressive voice she would often recite her 
favorite stanzas. 



A GREAT MOTHER 181 

Sitting at the head of the table on the morning 

of her eighty-seventh birthday, she quoted the 

following lines: 

"Never, my heart, shalt thou grow old; 
My hair is white, my blood runs cold, 
And one by one my powers depart, 
But youth sits smiling in my heart." 

Her daughter writes: "A volume of household 
words might readily be made from my recollections 
of mother's quotations from poets and philos- 
ophers." Her motto, "It is better farther on," 
was taken from "The Song of Hope," and the 
memory of her low sustained voice, as she used to 
repeat it, will forever linger in the hearts of those 
who heard. 

"A soft, sweet voice from Eden stealing, 

Such as but to angels known, 
Hope's cheering song is ever thrilling: 

It is better farther on. 

"I hear hope singing, sweetly singing, 
Softly in an undertone; 
And singing as if God had taught it: 
It is better farther on. 

"Still farther on — oh, how mucn farther? 
Count the milestones one by one? 
No! No! no counting! Only trusting 
It is better farther on." 

Two of her favorite preachers were George Mac- 
donald and Phillips Brooks. From the first, she 
often quoted this sentiment: "Age is not all de- 
cay; it is the ripening, the swelling of the fresh life 



182 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

within that withers and bursts the husks." And 
from the second, she quoted the question: "Why 
cannot we, slipping our hands into His each day, 
walk trustingly over the day's appointed path, 
thorny or flowery, crooked or straight, knowing 
that evening will bring us sweet peace and home?" 

She was wont to watch the children of the neigh- 
borhood as they passed Rest Cottage on their way 
to school. She would speak of them in a voice of 
infinite tenderness and sympathy, hoping and pray- 
ing that they might have friends in their youth and 
inexperience, that they might make their way nobly 
and well along the intricate path of life and into a 
safer and a better world. Indeed, the only note 
that was not jubilant in all the many keys that her 
varied conversation struck was when she talked of 
the pitiful little child let loose in this great grind- 
ing mill of a world. 

At eighty-five she wrote a charming bit of verse 
which has been recited all over the world by the 
little soldiers newly mustered in to fight the army 
of temptation and of sin: 

LITTLE PEOPLE 

"The world will be what you make it, 

Little people; 
It will be as you shape it, 

Little people. 
Then be studious and brave, 
And your country help to save, 

Little people. 



A GREAT MOTHER 183 

"When we walk into the gray, 
And you into the day, 

Little people, 
We will beckon you along 
With a very tender song, 

Little people. 

"If war is in the air, 
When we make our final prayer, 

Little people, 
We will pass along to you 
All the work we tried to do, 
Little people." 

In Madam Willard's journal of her last year we 
find these entries: 

" I am not I until that morning breaks, 
Not I until my consciousness eternal wakes." 

And again these words of Victor Hugo : " I am rising, 
I know, toward the skies; the sunshine is on my 
head; the nearer I approach the end the plainer I 
hear around me the immortal symphonies of the 
worlds which invite me." 

The last time she led in the home service of prayer 
her faith was thus expressed: "We walk out into the 
mystery fearless because we trust in Thee; we face 
the great emergency with our hearts full of vital 
questions that cannot here be answered; we leave 
them all with Thee, knowing that Thou wilt cherish 
our wistful aspirations toward Him who lived and 
has redeemed us. We would know many things 
that Thou hast not revealed, but we can only love 
and trust and wait/' 



184 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

During the last weeks of her life the solar heavenly 
look was ever on the countenance of "Saint Cour- 
ageous." Those who stood closest to her will never 
forget the sweet joy and boundless anticipation with 
which she looked forward to the hour when she 
would enter into immortal life. She and her daugh- 
ter Frances talked together of the great change that 
was approaching. Without a single fear or tear she 
looked forward to the day when she should pass from 
earth's twilight into heaven's morn and meet again 
those whom she had "loved and lost awhile," lending 
them to God. In one of those hours her daughter's 
belief as to the problem "Does death end all?" 
was thus stated : 

"Suppose a man should build a ship and freight 
it with the rarest works of art, and in the very build- 
ing and the freighting should plan to convey the 
ship out into midocean and there scuttle it with all 
its contents ! And here is the human body, in itself 
an admirable piece of mechanism, the most delicate 
and wonderful of which we know; it is like a splen- 
did ship, but its cargo incomparably outruns the 
value of itself, for it is made up of love, hope, 
veneration, imagination, and all the largess of man's 
unconquerable mind. Why should its Maker 
scuttle such a ship with such a freightage? He 
who believes that this is done is capable of a credul- 
ity that far outruns the compass of our faith. Death 



A GREAT MOTHER 185 

cannot be an evil, for it is universal. It must be 
good to those that do good because it crowns man's 
evolution on the planet earth. 'Lord, we can trust 
Thee for our holy dead.' " 

If for Mother Willard the years had been full of 
storm and tumult, these contrasts and adversities 
had also been full of culture. Unconsciously she was 
herself the fulfillment of the thought of one of her 
favorite authors: "The most beautiful thing that 
lives on this earth is not the child in the cradle, 
sweet as it is. It is not ample enough. It has not 
had history enough. It is all prophecy. Let me 
see one who has walked through life; let me see a 
great nature that has gone through sorrow, through 
fire, through the flood, through the thunder of life's 
battle, ripening, sweetening, enlarging, and growing 
finer and finer and gentler and gentler, that fineness 
and gentleness being the result of great strength and 
great knowledge accumulated through a long life — 
let me see such a one stand at the end of life, as the 
sun stands on a summer afternoon just before it goes 
down. Is there anything on earth so beautiful as 
a rich, ripe, large, growing, and glorious Christian 
heart? No, there is nothing." 

It was the going from life of such a mother that 
made earth empty and the heart of the daughter 
forever bereaved. Ever after, her spirit drooped; a 
part of Miss Willard's deeper spiritual self reached 



186 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

out toward that universe to which from the moment 
of her mother's departure she felt she too belonged. 
In her journal we find the ever-recurring eloquent 
question, "Where is my mother?" A question that 
was to persistently reiterate itself until, like a tired 
child, she had been restored to her mother's arms. 
Not otherwise than Monica and Saint Augustine 
did these two, " Saint Courageous " and her daughter 
Frances, sit in the open window and gaze into the 
open sky into which the mother was soon to take 
her flight; they saw the heavens open and those 
who once had dwelt within their home, standing by 
the throne of God. If in the supreme hour of 
entrance upon the life with God the mother ascend- 
ing sent benediction down upon her daughter and 
upon all the world, the daughter, gazing into the 
open sky, cried out, "I give thee joy, my mother! 
All hail, but not farewell. Our faces are set the 
same way, blessed mother. I shall follow after — 
it will not be long." 



CHAPTER XII 

IN THE MOTHER COUNTRY 

"The many make the household, 
But only one the home." 

In the sunset years of her mother's life Miss 
Willard had centralized her work in the beloved 
home, now adorned by countless kindnesses of com- 
rades and friends. Picturing the busy hours in the 
cozy "den" when, shut in with that serene and 
benignant being "Saint Courageous," Miss Willard 
was lifted above her former toilsome life, we are re- 
minded of her journal note, written when, as a young 
teacher in Kankakee, she mused on the home faces 
of her "Four": 

"I thank God for my mother as for no other gift 
of His bestowing. My nature is so woven into hers 
that I almost think it would be death for me to have 
the bond severed and one so much myself gone over 
the river. She does not know, they do not any of 
them, the 'Four/ how much my mother is to me, 
for, as I verily believe, I cling to her more than ever 
did any other of her children. Perhaps because I am 
to need her more." 

Surely, she who could bear and train such a daugh- 
187 



188 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

ter was worthy to be what she always remained — 
her inspiration and her ideal. Now that Frances 
Willard was motherless, Rest Cottage only "a dumb 
dwelling, " hundreds of loyal hearts and lovely homes 
longed to shelter and console her, but God had open- 
ed an English home, a gracious, queenly heart, and 
the last six years of Miss Willard 's life were to be 
equally divided between the mother country and the 
home land. The origin of this notable friendship, 
which was to mean much to both women personally 
as well as to the cause they represented and to 
womanhood in England and America, is thus de- 
scribed in Lady Henry Somerset's own words: 

It was on a rainy Sunday some twelve years ago 
that I went down, as I was wont to do when alone at 
Eastnor Castle, to have tea with my capable and 
faithful housekeeper. We often spent an hour or 
two on Sunday afternoons discussing the affairs of 
the village and the wants of the tenants, among 
whom she conducted mothers' meetings and kept 
the accounts of the women's savings clubs. I saw 
on her table that day a little blue book, and, taking 
it up, read for the first time the title, "Nineteen 
Beautiful Years." Sitting down by the fire, I soon 
became so engrossed in reading that my housekeeper 
could get no further response from me that day, nor 
did I move from my place until I had finished the 
little volume. 

To me it was an idyl of home life — fresh, peace- 
ful, and tender — while its culmination in the passing 



IN THE MOTHER COUNTRY 189 

of that pure soul was a revelation of childlike faith 
that left me * ' nearer heaven . ' ' The name of Frances 
Willard was but a vague outline in my mind until 
that day. The temperance reform was only then 
beginning to unfold its lessons, and I was in the 
infant class of its great world school; but from the 
hour I read the tribute that this broken-hearted girl 
of twenty-two had laid in tears and loneliness upon 
her sister 's grave, I felt the spell of that personality 
which has meant so much to women the world over. 
The simplicity, the quaint candor, and the delicate 
touches of humor and pathos with which the book 
abounds, brought into living relief the character of 
one who has since become so nearly allied to me in 
our mutual work for the home and for humanity. 
Who of us can tell the unseen influences that guide 
the lives of those who stand in the forefront of the 
battle, and who may know the counsels that deter- 
mine when those bound in heart shall clasp hands in 
high endeavor? Perhaps it was the gentle angel 
who, watching over the destinies of her loved sister, 
sealed the friendship that unites in so close a bond 
the great band of women in two continents who 
"wage their peaceful war for God, and home and 
every land." 

The late Mrs. Hannah Whitall Smith, author of 
"The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life," seems 
to have been the connecting link between Lady 
Henry Somerset and the British Women's Temper- 
ance Association. They had never met when Mrs. 
Smith went to Ledbury, the seat of Eastnor Castle, 



190 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

to give a series of Bible readings. Lady Henry 
attended the meetings and invited her to her home. 
Here they communed concerning the things of the 
kingdom, and after Mrs. Smith's return to London, 
as she sat with the committee that was discussing 
the difficult question of a president of the British 
Women's Temperance Association, to succeed Mrs. 
Margaret Bright Lucas (sister of John Bright), there 
came to her the conviction that Lady Henry Somer- 
set was the God-ordained woman for the place. 
When the Association met in annual council a few 
weeks later, her ladyship was unanimously elected, 
and in response to a telegram came to the conven- 
tion and accepted the honors conferred upon her. 

Miss Willard, whose vision embraced the English 
speaking world as her field, presaged at once the 
progressive spirit that this valiant and exceptionally 
equipped president of the British Women 's Temper- 
ance Association was to bring to the white-ribbon 
cause. From that hour the desire of these leaders 
to meet was mutual, and the centripetal impulse of 
a first World's Convention in 1891 brought to- 
gether the two who were already one in the new 
concept of Christ 's Gospel in action. 

America, New England and Boston (where the 
meeting was held) first did honor to the noble English 
guest, so distinguished in all the progressive philan- 
thropy of her own country. After the convention 



IN THE MOTHER COUNTRY 191 

Lady Henry Somerset went west to the prairies of 
Illinois, and in Rest Cottage received the benediction 
of "Saint Courageous," who "farther on," as she 
saw the lights in her Heavenly Father's Home, 
tenderly said, "My English daughter has lighted up 
the whole world for me in her affection for my child." 

In August, 1892, three weeks after Miss Willard 
lost the earthly presence of her mother, she sailed 
for England to be met by sympathy, thoughtful- 
ness, a sustaining love and care which were to help 
prolong her own heroic and compassionate life. 
"The tears would just well up," she writes from 
Eastnor Castle in the first weeks of her grief. This 
heart that had brooded over the sorrows of so many 
was realizing the supreme experience of the daily 
longing for the most intimate of her life's compan- 
ionships. 

On the first birthday anniversary without her 
mother, September 28, 1892, the British Women's 
Temperance Association, through Lady Henry, sent 
an offering of flowers and this testimonial : 

To Frances E. Willard, President of the World's 
Woman 's Christian Temperance Union : 

Beloved President: The sadness that en- 
shrouds your coming to our country forbids any 
demonstration of national welcome; yours is a loss 
in which each of us has a share; with you we mourn 
a mother who by a long life of courage and a triumph- 



192 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

ant entry into Eternity has taught us that it is 
always better "farther on." 

We cannot, however, refrain on this, the anni- 
versary of your birth, tenderly to wish you many 
years rich and full of useful labor. In approaching 
you with our congratulations it is on no common- 
place errand of courtesy that we come, nor do our 
good wishes spring solely from our love and grati- 
tude. We lay this tribute in your hands because 
from you we have received the message of women 's 
greatness; because, looking back on the story of the 
past, we see none other to whom her fellow-women 
should confess so large a debt; because we know that 
life and strength to you will ever mean priceless and 
unflinching toil in the cause which seeks to bring 
humanity nearer its divine ideal. Your great heart, 
which knows no limitations of creed, class, or nation, 
but beats only with the pulsations of humanity, has 
thrown out the life line of the white ribbon, and to- 
day it girds the world, fit emblem of the white light 
of truth that called it into radiant existence. You 
have stood for the forces which level up and not 
down ; your life shall chant itself in its own beatitudes 
after your own life's service, for you have under- 
stood the divine motherhood that has made the world 
your family. 

In another of Miss Willard's letters we have the 
picture of the tranquil days passed at Eastnor 
Castle in retirement and work for the annual con- 
vention at home. . . . "We are keeping very 
quiet here at the Castle, seeing no one. We are re- 



IN THE MOTHER COUNTRY 193 

ceiving shoals of letters that come to us from all 
parts of the Kingdom as well as from 'Home, sweet 
home.' . . . For myself, I am not very vigorous, 
but am grinding away at my annual address, though 
with but little enthusiasm since mother is not here." 
Two months later Miss Willard was again on 
American soil in attendance upon the National 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union Convention 
of 1892 at Denver, Colorado, where a memorial 
service for her mother welded anew the hearts of 
her loyal constituents. Lady Henry accompanied 
her guest, Miss Willard returning with her to Eng- 
land in November. The succeeding weeks, which 
were filled with public work, were marked by a great 
welcome meeting at Exeter Hall in honor of the 
Founder and President of the World's Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union. Lady Henry Somer- 
set, as vice-president of this organization and hostess 
of Miss Willard, had issued invitations far and wide, 
calling upon all, irrespective of creed or sex, to come 
and do honor to her beloved friend, and in response 
a remarkable gathering assembled. Five thousand 
people united in this welcome; not only leaders of 
the principal English humanitarian organizations 
of the day, members of Parliament and London 
County Councilors, but a homogeneous company 
of representatives of missions, leagues, unions, socie- 
ties and guilds, over fifty of these groups being repre- 



194 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

sented. Miss Willard was greeted with an ovation, 
the "audience and platform rising en masse, waving 
handkerchiefs, and giving three British cheers in a 
manner which, with all their enthusiasm, no Ameri- 
can audience has as yet mastered, for it takes the 
burly form and the broad chest of John Bull to cheer 
in the lusty fashion of our Saxon and Viking ances- 
try." Lady Henry presided, and in an eloquent 
address of welcome presented the woman and the 
work they had gathered to honor. She said: 

It is fitting that this historic hall should have 
been chosen as the scene of a welcome to one who 
deserves above all other titles that of reformer. 
Wherever the temperance cause has a champion, 
wherever the cause of social purity has an exponent, 
wherever the labor movement lifts up its voice, 
wherever woman with the sunlight of the glad new 
day upon her face stretches forth her hands to God, 
there is the name of Frances Willard loved, cher- 
ished, and revered. Tried by a jury of her peers — 
even amid the clashing opinions of this transition 
age where the old is unwilling to die, and the new 
seems hardly ready to be born — there would still 
come the verdict, she is a fair opponent, she is a kind- 
ly comrade; she has firmness in the right as God gives 
her to see the right, and moves along her chosen 
path as Lincoln said, "with malice toward none and 
charity for all." From that more august and perhaps 
impartial jury, beyond the circle of reform, comes 
the verdict prophetic of that which history shall one 



IN THE MOTHER COUNTRY 195 

day record — she made the world wider for women 
and happier for humanity. 

We know that America owes her greatness to 
the sterling worth of those intrepid Puritan pioneers 
who were the best gift of the Old World to the New; 
so Frances Willard, who has in her veins that pure 
New England blood, owes to her ancestry much of 
the strength and courage that must ever be the basis 
of a reformer's character. 

If no other work had been accomplished, one 
of the greatest achievements of Frances Willard 's 
life has been her mission of reconciliation to the 
women of the South while yet the scars of war 
throbbed in their breasts, and new-made graves 
stretched wide between sections that had learned 
the misery of hatred. It was the white ribbon 
taken by her tender hands that bound these wounds 
and gently drew the noble-hearted women of that 
sunny land into the hospitable home circle of the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union. 

"Sacrifice is the foundation of all real success," 
and it was a crucial moment in Miss Willard 's life 
when she deliberately relinquished the brilliant 
position of dean of the first woman's college con- 
nected with a university in America, to go out penni- 
less, alone, and unheralded, because her spirit had 
caught the rhythm of the women 's footsteps as they 
bridged the distance between the home and the 
saloon in the Pentecostal days of the temperance 
crusade. She has relinquished that which women 
hold the dearest — the sacred, sheltered life of 
home. For her no children wait around the Christ- 
mas hearth, but she has lost that life only to find it 



196 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

again ten thousand fold. She has understood the 
mystery of the wider circle of love and loyalty, and 
the world is her home as truly as it was John 
Wesley's "parish." She has understood the divine 
motherhood that claims the orphaned hearts of 
humanity for her heritage, and a chorus of children 'a 
voices around the world hail her as mother, for 
organized mother-love is the best definition of the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union. 

"Live and take comfort; thou wilt leave behind 
Powers that will work for thee — 
Air, earth, and skies. 
There's not a breathing of the common wind 
That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; 
Thy friends are exultations, agonies, 
And love and man's unconquerable mind." 

In honor of such a guest we have gathered our 
choicest flowers of rhetoric and birds of song, for it 
is good and true to pour out the fragrance of our 
affection and our praise, and place our tribute in the 
warm clasp of living hands rather than lay it on the 
cold marble of the tomb. 

Before resuming her seat the chairman called 
upon the Rev. Canon Wilberforce to give the first 
greeting to Miss Willard, because he knew something 
of the work she has accomplished and his visit to 
America had given him an insight into the power 
and strength of women's work there. Canon 
Wilberforce then dashed into an earnest temperance 
appeal and offered Miss Willard a hearty welcome 



IN THE MOTHER COUNTRY 197 

in the name of the Church of England temperance 
reformers. 

The crowd driven back from the doors had flock- 
ed down the staircase and filled to overflowing a 
small hall capable of holding some fifteen hundred 
people. Here the eloquent Canon, followed quick- 
ly by Madame Antoinette Stirling, retired to keep 
them in patience until Miss Willard and Lady Henry 
Somerset had completed their duties upstairs. 

After nearly a score of welcome speeches, at half- 
past nine Miss Willard rose, and in swift, generous 
utterance responded to the sincere British enthu- 
siasm expressed in genial phrases. "The English," 
she said, "as individuals are reticent, but as an 
audience they bloom at you like a garden bed." In 
the glow of this sympathy her sensitive spirit was 
at once at home, and she took into her heart for aye 
her English audiences. 

I do not know, she said, that I was ever more 
pleased than I am to-night that I can trace my un- 
diluted ancestry back nine generations to an honest 
yeoman of Kent. "Brave hearts from Severn and 
from Clyde and from the banks of Shannon," I come 
to you from the Mississippi valley, and in that 
"whispering corn" of which my beloved friend and 
our great leader has spoken, I used to sit on my little 
four-legged wooden cricket, hidden away that no- 
body should know, reading out of poets and philos- 
ophers things that caused me to believe more than 



I 



198 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

I knew, and I do it yet. I do not know that prohibi- 
tion will capture old England, and salt it down with 
the "inviolate sea" as a boundary — but I believe 
it will. I do not know that the strong hand of labor 
will ever grasp the helm of state — but I believe it 
will. I do not know that the double standard in the 
habitudes of life for men and women will be ex- 
changed for a white life for two on the part of the 
Anglo-Saxon race — but I believe it will. I do not 
know that women will bless and brighten every 
place they enter, and that they will enter every 
place — but I believe they will. The welcome of 
their presence and their power is to be the touch- 
stone. 

On a green hill far away was the great scene of 
history where, on a wide-armed cross, was lifted up 
that Figure whose radiant love, shining out through 
all the generations since, has brought you and me 
together; given us our blessed temperance reform; 
is lifting labor to its throne of power; has made men 
so mild that they are willing to let women share the 
world along with them. And that reminds me that 
I wanted to speak a word about the gentle Czar. 
Have you ever heard of him — the gentle Czar? 
This one of whom I speak had at one time absolute 
power. He dwelt in his own world, woman was his 
vassal; she could not help herself, and had not wit 
enough perhaps to want to do so. But behold, the 
Czar said: "Since woman has a brain, it is God's 
token that she should sit down with her brother at 
the banquet of Minerva." So you invited us to 
school and then we came tripping along like singing 



IN THE MOTHER COUNTRY 199 

birds after a thunderstorm. No vote except that 
of this hydra-headed Czar ever opened a school for 
women to get their brains nurtured and cultured. 
I read that in Edinburgh (which classic city I hope 
to visit in a week or two), the trustees had by order 
of this Czar, invited women to join the College of 
Arts, and instead of the young men being crusty 
about it they were received with loud huzzas. In 
my own country, in some of the states and towns, 
the women have the municipal ballot; they have it 
under restriction in England. Who gave it to them? 
The gentle Czar. The barons at Runnymede had 
to force their charter from King John, but the bar- 
onesses of this age have but to say: "Would not 
you like to come and help us?" and the gentle Czar 
extends his scepter, when lo! the doors are opened 
wide. So I have no quarrel with men, and I have 
two reasons for thinking that they have been full 
of wisdom in letting us into the kingdom, for we 
want a fair division of the world into two equal parts. 
Please take notice, an undivided half is what the 
women want; they do not want to go off and set up 
for themselves and take their half, but to let it re- 
main for evermore an undivided half. I believe men 
have let us into the kingdom because they have had 
six thousand years of experience, and consider them- 
selves tolerably capable of taking care of number 
one. In the second place, I think that they are well 
assured in their own spirits that nobody living is 
quite so interested to do them justice, and to look 
after them in a very motherly way as these very 
women folk! There is but one great river of blood, 
one great battery of brain — our interests are for- 



200 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

ever indivisible, for every woman that I ever knew 
was some man 's daughter and every man I ever saw 
was some woman's son, and most of the men that 
I have been associated with in Christian work were 
"mother's boys." That is the best kind of a boy, 
whether he belongs to the children of a greater 
growth or whether he is still in the bewildered period 
of the first and second decades. 



Some people have said that the Do Everything 
policy is a "scatteration" policy; but I am willing to 
sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish under the 
working of the Do Everything policy. By this we 
mean what they did at the Battle of the Boyne — 
"Whenever you see a head hit it." Wherever the 
liquor traffic is intrenched, there put in an appearance 
and send out the ammunition of your Gatling gun 
rattling its fires along the entire field. That has 
been our method from the beginning. The liquor 
traffic is intrenched in the customs of society — go 
out after it, then, with the pledge of total ab- 
stinence for others' sake. The liquor traffic is pro- 
tected by the people 's ignorance — go after it into 
the Sunday schools and public schools with a "Thus 
saith Nature, thus saith Reason, thus said the Lord." 
The liquor traffic is safeguarded by the law — go 
after it into legislature and parliament, and give 
them no rest for the soles of their feet till they give 
you better law than you have yet achieved. But 
laws are made by men, not by abstractions, and 
men are elected by parties. Then do not be the 
least afraid, but go out among the parties and see 
which of them will take up your cause and then stick 



IN THE MOTHER COUNTRY 201 

to that one. Parties are built up from units of 
humanity, and they need a stronger contingent of 
moral power. Let us, then, bring that contingent 
to the front; bring up the home guards and add them 
to the army. There are two serpents, intemperance 
and impurity, that have inclosed and are struggling 
with the infant Hercules of Christian civilization. 
Let us strike at both, for purity and total ab- 
stinence must go together; the two must rise or fall 
together; and when we find that the Siamese twins 
of civilization are purity and total abstinence, when 
we find that we must foster both, or each will die, 
then we shall have widened our cause as God wants 
to see it widened. 

Alcoholized brains are like colored glass. We 
cannot transmit the light of the truth unless we are 
under the power of that holy habit, sobriety. May 
every home that you love be the home of peace; may 
every life that you cherish escape the curse of drink; 
may every child that you left to-night when coming 
to this meeting grow up sweet and pure and true. 
May every man that has lent to us his attention at 
this hour belong to the great army of the gentle 
Czar who is willing to welcome women even to the 
throne room of government. 

"Strike, till the last armed foe expires! 
Strike for your altars and your fires ! 
Strike for the green graves of your sires — 
God and your native land!" 

Quaint, humorous, reminiscent, and prophetic, Miss 
Willard, with womanly tenderness, took her listeners 
back into her sacred home life, pregnant with asso- 



202 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

ciation and inspiration, and, with statesmanlike 
vigor, out into the universal life of human need and 
aspiration. Again and again she was encouraged 
by the applause of her sympathetic audience. 
Lady Henry Somerset then addressed Miss Wil- 
lard, saying: 

We cannot detain you to listen to all the 
telegrams from individuals and from the branches 
of the British Women's Temperance Association 
by which Old England greets New England's 
daughter. Three hundred branches of the British 
Women's Temperance Association have sent greet- 
ings; every post has brought their loyal welcome, 
and the names are recorded upon this testi- 
monial which the British women gladly present 
to you. This beautiful banner has been embroider- 
ed by the loyal hands of British women, and we beg 
your acceptance of it that it may grace the plat- 
forms of America and remind you there of your Eng- 
lish sisters. 

The Exeter Hall meeting, reported well by the 
London Times and the Daily News, awoke England 
from Ramsgate to the Isle of the Dogs, and count- 
less invitations poured in urging Miss Willard to 
meet great audiences and illustrious statesmen. 
The cities of England seemed to unite in the request 
that she should visit each of them. It would be but 
a repetition of occasions similar to that of Exeter 
Hall if we were to follow her from city to city, as 



IN THE MOTHER COUNTRY 203 

she was welcomed at great meetings and enthu- 
siastic receptions. Already the physicians who had 
been consulted in regard to her physical condition 
insisted that absolute rest was imperative for the 
restoration of her strength, and slowly there was 
wrought in the quiet and beauty of Lady Henry's 
own home a marvelous change. Beautiful and 
invigorating days were spent in Switzerland in the 
Engardine. The air and altitude were a delight 
to Miss Willard's spirit and brought with each day 
increased buoyancy of mind and body. 

During the World's Fair in 1893, Lady Henry 
Somerset came to America, assuming heavy bur- 
dens connected with the World's and National 
Conventions in Chicago, in order that Miss Willard 
might recuperate in the restfulness of retired Eng- 
lish life. The American leader was meanwhile the 
guest of Mrs. Hannah Whitall Smith at Haslemere. 

In the months following, as her strength increased, 
Miss Willard not only helped the World 's work and 
notably the British branch, but kept in close touch 
with the work at home, and with Lady Henry 
Somerset did a vast amount of public speaking in 
England and Scotland. 

The public demonstrations which greeted Miss 
Willard on her return to America proved that her 
own home country, as well as lands over the sea, 
delighted to do her honor. In one of New York's 



204 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

largest churches a welcome meeting was held in 
June, 1894, the great auditorium being all too small 
to hold the thousands who wanted to greet person- 
ally the beloved leader. How the great audience 
cheered her! How the cheers joyfully broke out 
again as anxious, questioning eyes saw that the pale 
cheeks had rounded out, that the weary lines had 
disappeared, that the golden-brown hair still kept 
its youthful tints — that the long absence was 
j ustified ! Notable reform speakers uttered eloquent 
words of greeting. Letters and telegrams had been 
received from every state in the Union. Of the 
telegrams which were read, was one from Doctor 
Bashford of Ohio Wesleyan University, announcing 
that the college had that day conferred upon Miss 
Willard the degree of Doctor of Laws. 

A few words have been selected from Miss Wil- 
lard 's response: 

As you sing "Home, Sweet Home,' ' I seem to look 
up into my mother's dear face and hear her sing 
it to a nervous little girl. Mother's gone, brother 
and sister have passed away. I am the last one left, 
but I am not lonely, for these are my folks, this is 
my home. . . . But this loving greeting is not 
a personal tribute. These kind words and kinder 
deeds are not invidious to woman. Some say that 
we women are a mutual admiration society; well, 
better so than carping critics of each other. But it 
is not fair to have so much praise. I am but the 



IN THE MOTHER COUNTRY 205 

buoy kept up by the ever-heaving sea, the wind- 
mill showing the course of the wind. Sea and wind 
are the capable, self-sacrificing rank and file of the 
white-ribbon army. All this tribute should be for 
them; it is for them. 

At the National Woman 's Christian Temperance 
Union Convention in Boston, in 1880, Miss Willard 
was greatly surprised and deeply touched when Miss 
Mary A. Lathbury, whose happy suggestion in- 
spired the generous gift, presented to Miss Willard, 
on behalf of the Twilight Park Association, the deed 
to a tract of land in Twilight Park, The Catskills. 
A small bequest to Miss Willard from a relative made 
possible, a few years later, the building of the cottage 
which Miss Willard named "Eagle's Nest" in mem- 
ory of her eyrie in the old tree at Forest Home. 
White-ribboners furnished the pretty cottage, and 
for a few weeks one halcyon summer Miss Willard 
enjoyed the lovely, secluded spot with its wondrous 
outlook and its sense of peace. 

Miss Willard 's fiftieth birthday, September 28, 
1889, occurred during one of her rare visits in her 
Evanston home. Gifts, letters, and telegrams came 
pouring into Rest Cottage all day. In the afternoon 
a delightful Harvest Home Festival was celebrated 
in the First Methodist Church, by the Loyal Tem- 
perance Legion, numbering nearly two hundred. 
In the evening a dinner was given by Woman's 



206 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

Christian Temperance Union comrades who resided 
in the other half of the twin cottage. Later the 
mother and daughter enjoyed a surprise in "Evans- 
ton's Testimonial to Frances E. Willard," given at 
the home church, The First Methodist. All hearts 
were thrilled at the sight of the Loyal Temperance 
Legion marching, a bannered host, to the altar, 
where they sang the opening song. Mr. H. H. C. 
Miller, Mayor of Evanston, presided. Addresses 
were made in behalf of the churches, the University, 
the Woman's Club, and the Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union. Congratulatory letters and 
telegrams were read, and resolutions were adopted, 
recognizing the "unselfish devotion and tireless 
energy of Frances E. Willard in every good work,'* 
and tendering the hearty congratulations of Evans- 
ton citizens upon her fiftieth anniversary. Miss 
Willard 's reply was characteristically full of happy 
turns of thought and deep touches of pathos. 

In the early morning of September 28, 1891, her 
fifty-second birthday, Miss Willard stood with her 
mother at the window of the " den" in Rest Cottage, 
and watched the burning of the barn built by her 
father a quarter of a century before. Writing of 
the event, she thus philosophizes: "Whatever 
burns, let it burn. When your barn goes you have 
still yourself, and should your house go still you have 
yourself, and when your body goes in death 's com- 



IN THE MOTHER COUNTRY 207 

bustion, still and evermore you have yourself and 
are housed from first to last in God and his enfold- 
ing, warming, vitalizing love." 

Near the spot where the barn had stood was 
built a cairn. The inception and growth of that 
most interesting "witness heap" can best be de- 
scribed in Miss Willard 's own words : 

For years I have been wishing that we could 
make the little home more of a souvenir to all who 
come than it has ever been. I wanted trees, vines, 
plants, and flowers from homes that people love, and 
I had already carried not a few slips, sprigs, and 
seeds from those that have sheltered my wanderings. 
But a cairn that should commemorate the eight 
hundred delegates and friends who came to call on 
mother from the Chicago convention had been 
much in my mind, and to that as a nucleus could be 
added "no end" of the pretty stones that most of 
us begin gathering in childhood, and of which we 
have at least a score before we reach a score of years. 
Knowing this, my "gentle Anna" decided to se- 
cure these souvenirs as a birthday surprise, and 
sending out five hundred postals on September 1st, 
she had by the 28th received specimens from every 
state and territory, including Alaska, every prov- 
ince of Canada and all along shore. A more unique, 
varied, eloquent collection one would look long to 
find. God's crystallized flowers are here; His 
thoughts in forms and colors that predict the new 
Jerusalem. Besides these fittest survivals of the 
mineral kingdom, there are stones of the field, the 



208 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

forest, and the stream; historic emblems; speci- 
mens of every state's best yield in rocks; and sacred 
little pebbles that loved hands had gathered and 
rosy, childish fingers touched before they grew white 
in the steady clasp of death. Then the letters, the 
poems and telegrams, are a mine of jewels more 
flashing than any that wealth or beauty ever wore. 
They gleam with faith in our most holy cause; they 
glisten with purpose undaunted; they glow with love 
undying. The symbolism of this tremendous " ston- 
ing" is brought out most ingeniously in sentences 
scintillating as the crystals they accompany. It 
seems as if no Bible reference is overlooked — and 
we all know how rich these are — and applications 
found to the holy work of the hour by which Christ 's 
bride shall be adorned for His coming in the new 
republic of God around which all our work and 
prayers concenter like the crystals of a rose-quartz 
geode. 

In this very town, nearly thirty -four years ago, 
I studied Dana's Mineralogy, and with test-tube 
and blowpipe interviewed the royal family of the 
stone world and many of its great mellow-hued or 
dull-toned commonalty. But how little did I dream 
that the "cabinet" coveted so earnestly by our 
class as one of the best gifts, would come to me at 
last, along the lines of a thousand friendships that 
have blossomed brighter than gems, from the vital 
root of a great home-cause. These tokens, one and 
all, are not looked upon as mine — indeed, each day 
the sense of personal possession, once so strong, falls 
steadily away from me — but are lovingly held in 
trust for the great and growing family of the white- 



IN THE MOTHER COUNTRY 209 

ribboners to whom belong all that we of Rest Cottage 
have and are. 

Stones from all over the world were contributed. 
Many of these were of too great value to be a part 
of the cairn on the lawn, and they were given place 
within the Cottage. Most interesting reading is 
the book in the "den" in which the names of all 
donors are inscribed, with mention of many of the 
notable stones. Upon the cover are these words: 
"Rest Cottage Cairn. Established Sept. 28, 1891. 
Genesis 31 :44-49." 



CHAPTER XIII 
BRITISH ORGANIZATIONS AND INSTITUTIONS 

During Miss Willard's sojourn in England the 
suggestive and instructive points in the organi- 
zations and institutions of that country, especially 
their expression in woman's life and work, vitally 
interested her. As the guest of Lady Henry 
Somerset, opportunities to study their promin- 
ent phases and characteristics were many and 
varied. To attend political conventions in which 
men and women were equally interested, was to 
her a novel experience. English methods of elec- 
tion were an absorbing study, but the most inspiring 
phenomenon was the place of prominence given to 
women in political life. 

With great stirring of spirit she thus describes a 
convention of the Woman's Liberal Federation: 

Nowhere on the face of the earth have women 
organized with so much strength, skill, and devotion 
to forward beneficent political movements as in the 
mother country. Seventy-five thousand of them 
are banded in the Woman's Liberal Federation for 
the purpose of advancing the interest of that great 
party which has for many years been "casting up 

210 



BRITISH ORGANIZATIONS 211 

the highway" of emancipation by which England 
shall pass over into the promised land of liberty, 
equality, fraternity. Mrs. Gladstone has been from 
the first president of this organization, and as an 
educator for women it has no rival in the island; for 
successes, and failures, too, are teaching the women 
that only when great causes are incarnated in politics 
and parties do they command the public mind and 
crystallize into those better laws that bring a sec- 
tion of the "organized millennium" equally to each 
and to all. 

No one, save duly elected delegates from the 
local societies and accredited representatives of the 
press, is allowed to be present at the annual meetings 
of the Woman's Liberal Federation. Fortunately 
for me, I was chosen a delegate by the women of New- 
port, Wales, and though under orders not to speak, 
I could hardly do less than move the resolution, 
intrusted to me by them, condemning the placing of 
any further restrictions on the work of women until 
the opinion of the women themselves has been ascer- 
tained in each case. Physically it was an ordeal to 
be present as a spectator in meetings of such moment- 
ous interest, but it was the chance of a lifetime. I 
had prepared for it by several weeks of quiet living 
in the country, and I hope soon to recuperate from 
the fatigue, while the memory will remain with me 
an unfailing fount of inspiration. 

To some of us, who believe in the great educa- 
tional power of what may be called the aesthetic side 
of a movement, it would seem to be an improve- 
ment if there were more in the outward form that 
appealed to the imagination and engraved upon 



212 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

the heart great battle cries condensing argument and 
conviction in the form of an epigram. 

A peculiarity of English conventions (they never 
use that word here) is the cut-and-dried order of 
business, which is called an Agenda. Each resolu- 
tion, motion, and amendment is printed in full, with 
the name of the person who advocates it and the 
local society that he represents. As a result of this 
arrangement, there is very little occasion for the 
intricacies of parliamentary usage, and there is 
practically no participation from the floor of the 
house. The women who, under this rule, spoke 
at the "Woman's Liberal' ' (as it is called for short) 
were survivals of the fittest, or rather survivals of 
the best; they spoke from the platform, and having 
known for days or weeks that they were to do so, 
brought excellent preparation, and in almost no 
case was any manuscript to be seen. They were, as 
a rule, well heard, and what they said was full of 
practical good sense, often brightened by humor. 
There were the usual complaints in the rear of the 
hall that "nobody could hear a word; nobody could 
hear what was going on; speak louder; there is too 
much whispering on the platform, as well as on the 
floor." In the midst of these mildly murmured 
criticisms the new president, Lady Aberdeen, smiled 
graciously, and evidently held the confidence and 
good-will of the assembly. She used no gavel, but 
rang a little bell from time to time to bring the dele- 
gates to order; they were, however, remarkably 
decorous, and all the arrangements combined to 
make them so, the popular character of the meeting 
being its least emphatic feature. 



BRITISH ORGANIZATIONS 213 

While there are advantages in the strong hand of 
officialism and the sway of committeeism (both so 
dominant in all public affairs on this side of the 
water), I question if the greater spontaneity of 
individual initiative, which is the ruling factor in 
our American conventions, is not an advantage of 
still greater value in that development of character 
and intellectual acumen on which, in the last anal- 
ysis, the success of associated effort must depend. 

Without a dissenting vote the ballot for women 
was indorsed as one of the objects of the "Woman's 
Liberal," to be included in its constitution. This 
decision created more enthusiasm than any other 
subject that came before the council. Home Rule 
was adopted as a matter of course without dissent; 
the same is true of the Liquor Traffic Local Control 
Bill; the Sunday closing of public houses; closing 
during polling hours for all elections, parliamentary 
or local; and the council "earnestly desired that a 
law should be passed giving all the adult inhabitants 
of each locality the complete control of the liquor 
traffic." This resolution was moved by Lady Henry 
Somerset in a brief but effective speech, and seconded 
by Mrs. Hugh Price Hughes. The Welsh Local 
Veto Bill was also unanimously indorsed. It was 
decided by unanimous vote that married women 
should stand on the same ground as spinsters and 
widows in the suffrage bill, and that while English 
women have already a municipal vote (i. e. y rate- 
payers who are spinsters or widows), they ought, 
without distinction of class, to have not only the 
municipal but the parliamentary franchise, on pre- 
cisely the same basis as men. 



214 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

The bill to establish parish councils, whereby 
local legislation shall be taken from the hands of 
squires and parsons and given to the people, was 
warmly indorsed, and it was declared that this bill 
should make it perfectly clear that women are equal- 
ly eligible with men to elect and be elected, not only 
in parish councils, but in district and county councils. 

A resolution in its favor was indorsed without 
dissent; indeed, every legal disability of women 
seemed to be passed upon and declared against with 
practical unanimity. Eight resolutions, each of 
them covering some important phase of the Liberal 
movement as it relates to women, were adopted with 
enthusiasm. 

The Salvation Army with its militant leaders 
attracted Miss Willard, and she gives this account of 
"General Booth in Action": 

On March 27, 1893, in a Union church — which 
I suppose means a Congregational in London — 
spacious and on the amphitheatre plan, I first saw 
and heard the man whom I have long been wont to 
call the "old war eagle" of the Salvation Army. It 
was eleven o 'clock on a bright spring morning when 
we entered, and the church was nearly full. A 
brass band was stationed at the right of the pulpit, 
and the bonnets of the sisterhood were a marked 
feature, not only on the platform, where one of the 
General 's daughters was seated, but throughout the 
audience, while the Garibaldi shirts of the brother- 
hood lighted up the scene on every hand. One of 
the officers, who has a bassoon voice, was singing 
as we entered, and this was the refrain, "He saves to 



BRITISH ORGANIZATIONS 215 

the uttermost"; his voice was mellow and immense. 
The General put an arm over the huge shoulders of 
the singer and said, "You shan't sing it unless you 
mean it," upon which the gentle giant smiled, nodded 
his shaggy head, and all the people shouted "Amen !" 

Having been escorted to the platform by one of 
the officers, I had a good opportunity to study the 
leader. He is, I should think, over six feet in height, 
and has an "off-hand" manner in the presence of an 
audience, such as he probably used when disporting 
himself at home with his children in earlier days. 
He has a remarkably fine, large head, well poised; 
keen, dark-brown eyes; an eagle beak like the Duke 
of Wellington, and a long gray beard, worthy of 
St. Jerome. He has a fine, delicately-made hand, 
with the wedding ring on his finger that reminds one 
of that great woman — "the mother" of the Salva- 
tion Army. In her going the light of this world 
went out from the life of this great leader, for no 
two were ever more devotedly attached. He walks 
up and down the platform; advances with the Bible 
extended in both hands; pounds the pulpit; thrusts 
his hands through his abundant dark locks, now 
turning to gray; and gestures with his shoulders as 
well as head and hands. He was talking to the 
officers, who had assembled to celebrate what was 
announced as a "day with God," which means a day 
given up to the endeavor to realize more thoroughly 
the personal relations of the Salvation soldier to the 
Captain of the salvation of us all. 

It was a moving scene, as rough men came for- 
ward crying to the altar, women with their little 
children, girls with worn, wan faces, which told of 



216 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

harder lives than they ought ever to have known. 
"Thirty-four are in the Gospel net!" called out one 
of the brethren, going down among them to help, 
and we noticed that men talked with men, women 
with women; there was no exception to this rule, 
which seems worthy of imitation in all revival meet- 
ings. Among those who superintended this solemn 
altar service was a grandniece of Sir Fowell Buxton, 
the anti-slavery reformer, and a cousin of Elizabeth 
Fry. 

"You want white robes," cried out the General. 
"They are not the fashion now; they're scarce down 
here; the smoke of London seems to soil them, but 
they will be the fashion yonder, and God will help 
us carry them white and clean into the promised 
land." 

It was a scene that recalled the old-time camp 
meetings in the far West. It had all their simplicity 
of heart, earnestness, and devotion. Again and 
again the band led the great assembly as it sang, 
"He saves to the uttermost." The effect was in- 
describable, and moved to tears eyes not used to 
weeping — the pure faces of the Salvation women as 
they knelt beside the hapless, friendless young girls 
who came forward, the brotherly tones of the men 
as they knelt beside the horny-handed, hard-faced 
offenders, who were crying for deliverance. And 
while they prayed, the General turned to Lady 
Henry Somerset and me, and showed us a handful 
of stub pipes already given up by the men, and said : 
"We get these, and lots of whisky flasks, too, and so 
we work for temperance." 

A cultivated woman handed me these words, 



BRITISH ORGANIZATIONS 217 

hastily written, as she looked on the scene I have 
described: "In spite of all criticisms, and after all 
is done and said, I always ask myself, What other 
organization brings the people out of the abysses of 
sin better than the Salvation Army? I have seen 
it in nearly all countries of the world, and it stops 
my mouth when I hear something said of the Salva- 
tionists which may be true or not, for the one thing 
needful always remains, that the Salvation Army 
men and women are at it, all at it, and always at it 
to save the world." 

One thing I know, that this weary scribe went 
out thence with tearful eyes and a more mellow mind, 
singing in tones unheard except in heaven : 

" Take my poor heart and let it be 
Forever closed to all but Thee." 

Doubtless this did not come to pass, but I drew 
a hair's breadth "Nearer, my God, to Thee," because 
of that strange morning with the "old war eagle" 
and his devoted brood. 

Nearer to Miss Willard 's heart than either of these 
nineteenth century movements was Lady Henry 
Somerset's cherished enterprise, the Duxhurst 
Industrial Farm Home. Miss Willard 's lifelike 
description reveals to us how at one she ever was 
with everything that meant help to those who 
thought themselves forgotten: 

To one who looks below the surface, there is 
untold pathos in the group of pretty gray cottages 
that cluster in the edge of the trees, which, with the 



218 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

children's "Nest" near by, the chapel and hospital, 
the Manor House and Hope House, make up a veri- 
table village among the pleasant hills of Surrey, 
for on this spot center the affection and honest hard 
work of the "British Women" and their leader, who 
have set themselves by God's help to give to Eng- 
land its most gracious object lesson in the cure of 
inebriety. But the real pathos of their holy endea- 
vor is in the fact that they are working for mothers, 
for wives, and for little children — the three classes 
of human beings in whom center the most of tender 
thought and sacred love, and the Gospel of Christ 
alone renders such an institution possible. "Neither 
do I condemn thee; go in peace, and sin no more," 
is the word of life He spoke, and it applies not to one 
sin, but to all. 

Hence it was fitting that the central building of 
this significant group should be a church, and that 
its dedication should be the first public exercise 
engaged in by the members and friends of our farm 
colony, and it was fitting that the clergyman 
should be Canon Wilberforce, of Westminster, whose 
name suggests the devotion of generations to "what- 
soever things are pure" and good, and whose life- 
long loyalty to the cause of temperance and his 
later declarations in favor of the cause of women 
mark him as the champion in the English Church 
of those reforms whereby the Christian religion 
incarnates itself in custom and in law. It was fitting, 
too, that the twentieth annual meeting of the Brit- 
ish Woman's Temperance Association should have 
this dedication as its first service. Lady Henry 
Somerset, who has been from the first the presiding 



BRITISH ORGANIZATIONS 219 

genius of the enterprise, arranged the plan, the de- 
tails of which were filled in by her devoted and 
capable associates. The Executive Committee came 
down from London with other invited guests. The 
girls of St. Mary's Home and the children of the 
"Guild of the Poor Things," with the cottage pa- 
tients, furnished the music. Tea was served in a large 
marquee on the grounds, and the committee had 
several hours in which to go over the village, most 
of them never having visited it until to-day. When 
the dedication was over, tea was served in Lady 
Henry's room, where Lady Katharine Somerset, 
Canon Wilberforce, his wife and daughter, Mrs. 
Pearsall-Smith, and Miss Agnes Weston were the 
principal guests. 

That so much had been accomplished in so brief 
a space was a delightful surprise and the general 
theme of congratulation. No enterprise was ever 
more nobly served than this one has been from the 
first, but among the capable and faithful workers it 
will not be deemed invidious to mention the Sister 
Superintendent, a woman who is a born leader and 
organizer of forces on a large scale; Sister Kathleen, 
who is a very Madonna to the homeless little ones 
in the Nest; and Miss Smith, the lady gardener, 
whose patient skill is working out a lovely frame of 
greensward, flowers, and vines for the picture made 
by these charming cottages. 

The church is modeled after one at Engelberg, 
Switzerland, which had attracted Lady Henry 
Somerset's attention when sojourning there, and of 
which she brought away a photograph; but the 
coloring, like that of the interior of all the cottages, 



220 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

is according to a scheme of her own, the theory be- 
ing that strong masses of color help to make the 
walls attractive. The rafters of the church are 
painted a dull geranium red, and round the string- 
course on a gold band the Lord's Prayer encircles 
the building, being so arranged as to bring the words 
"Our Father" directly above the altar. 

The walls are gray-blue; at the east end they are 
covered with a beautiful design painted on canvas, 
while the hangings are all rare embroidery of the 
fourteenth century. The ornaments of the chapel 
were given by Adeline, Duchess of Bedford. Yester- 
day the east end was beautifully decorated with 
lilies, palms, and white hydrangeas, while the altar 
was wreathed with roses and large standard lilies, 
all from the gardens of Reigate Priory. 

Canon Wilberforce had prepared a service that 
was especially appropriate and tender, in the carry- 
ing out of which he was assisted by Rev. Aston L. 
Whitlock, rector of the parish and one of the most 
helpful friends of the enterprise. The address of 
Canon Wilberforce was characterized by the well- 
known spiritual elevation of thought and vigor of 
utterance that places him in the forefront of English 
pulpit orators. He made the spiritual the basis of 
physical health, and said that it had been proved in 
recent scientific investigations that the sun's rays 
will kill out every form of microbe and bacillus. 
Even so the Divine beams of the Sun of Righteous- 
ness, shining into the human heart, will kill out the 
germs of every evil appetite. 

At the close a touching procession came down 
the aisle, the little crippled and blind boys whom 



BRITISH ORGANIZATIONS 221 

Sister Kathleen and Sister Grace are caring for at 
the Children 's Nest — to which Countess Somers, 
mother of Lady Henry Somerset, has so largely 
contributed — that halcyon home of happy outings 
for little people from the London slums. They 
carried the Union Jack and the flag of their "Guild 
of the Poor Things" (suggested by that pitiful story 
of Mrs. Juliana Horatio Ewing, entitled "The Story 
of a Short Life"), and it bore the legend, 

" The Son of God goes forth to war, 
A kingly crown to gain; 
His blood-red banner streams afar: 
Who follows in His train?" 

This is the chosen song of the guild, and there 
were tears in all eyes as the little fellows sang their 
hymn of conquest, all the verses of which they knew 
by heart. They have been taught that their 
crutches if used in the right spirit and in the Master 's 
sight, are swords of victory, and this is their motto, 
which they repeat in cheery voices: "Happy is my 
lot." It was a tender climax to the hallowed ser- 
vice, this song from the loyal little hearts that know 
what suffering means and how to overcome it "In 
His Name." 

As the audience came out to the pretty portico, 
there stood Lady Henry Somerset, who has con- 
secrated such devoted toil and generous gifts to the 
enterprise, holding in both hands a big brass plate, 
and looking into every face, her smiling glance seem- 
ing to say, "And now concerning the collection." 
Many gold coins were left in her care, and Mrs. M., 
whose great heart makes her gifts for good continu- 



222 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

ous, left a scrap of paper on which were penciled 
the words, "In gratitude for the dedication services; 
a hundred pounds more from E. L. M." 

And when it was all over, as I stood watching 
the long procession of brakes, filled by those noble 
women of the executive committee who are the 
special co-workers of Lady Henry; as I saw the little 
crippled fellows in their crimson blouses, shouting 
"Three cheers for Canon Wilberf orce " (who as his 
carriage swept past lifted his hat to them with as 
much deference as if they had been "the Queen's 
Own"); as I saw the women, who are the objects of 
so much loving thought, going quietly to their peace- 
ful cottages, and the gentle Sisters in uniform, who 
have them in their care, I wondered if there was in 
all this great and powerful England a spot of ground 
dearer to God than that on which the Farm Home 
Colony has raised its sacred walls. 

In connection with the same Convention, a gala- 
day for the delegates was the reception and garden 
fete at Reigate Priory, one of Lady Henry Somer- 
set's charming country homes. We quote from 

The Union Signal: 

The quaint and beautiful English village was 
stormed by white-ribboners, whose processional 
advent along the leafy, peaceful streets was looked 
upon with interest by the inhabitants of Lady 
Henry's quiet retiring place. Two long excursion 
trains had rapidly borne the happy host out from 
the city, and to the delegates, worn somewhat with 
constant attendance at the great meetings and 



BRITISH ORGANIZATIONS 223 

interludes of sightseeing, the sweet country air and 
genial sunshine of the perfect June day were as nec- 
tar to a thirsty spirit. 

The long line of women, with here and there a 
favored man, proceeded along the village streets, 
past the familiar " Cottage" (recognized at once by 
many), and through the gates to the Priory, whose 
long, low, simple outlines gave little indication of 
the wealth and beauty within. At the door of the 
great hall, Lady Henry Somerset graciously made all 
feel at home, and just inside the first entrance Miss 
Willard, with a happy and pertinent word for each, 
received the guests, whose number was nearly one 
thousand. The fine mansion was thrown open to 
the visitors, who soon invaded every corner — the 
perfectly decorated, pale green silk-hung drawing- 
room; the library in white and gold, with its hundreds 
of rare volumes; the dining-room, with its dark 
wainscotings and handsome red tapestry hangings; 
the dainty reception room, and others rich in rare 
furniture, portraits, armor, and bric-a-brac. But 
the chief points of interest were the "dens' 5 — Miss 
Willard 's, with its artistic furnishings, at once rec- 
ognized by "mother's" picture over the mantel and 
the familiar traveling handbag with its initials, "F. 
E. W.," lying upon the desk; and Lady Henry's 
room, which appeared very thought-inviting. The 
familiar face of the beloved Quaker poet looked 
down upon the temperance workers of many lands 
who peeped into this sanctum of the reform leader. 

Out upon the lawn and in the garden the scene 
was a festive one. Under a magnificent willow tree 
a band (appropriately of women) played lively 



224 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

melodies. At the long tables beneath the canvas 
tent and at many smaller tables near, the guests 
were being served in true English fashion. It was 
a social, friendly company, for no other introduction 
was needed than the significant knot of white. 
Armenian and Scandinavian, Indian and South 
African, German, Swedish, and French delegates 
mingled with those of English-speaking countries 
in unhedged social converse, giving the gathering a 
real cosmopolitan character. Of course, with such 
a company speechmaking could not be omitted, so 
a platform was improvised, and those who could 
get within hearing distance doubtless heard much 
that was witty and wise. The occasion was honored 
by the presence of the Countess Somers, Lady 
Henry 's mother, vying with her daughter in youth- 
ful looks. Countess Somers is greatly interested 
in the reform work of her noble daughter, reading 
The Union Signal, and following the progress of the 
great reform. 

So much had the weather, the occasion, and the 
surroundings delighted the happy guests that it was 
with regret they heard the sweet bells of the Priory 
clock announce the hour of departure. It will be 
long before the tourists "forget that day in June" 
which took them into the sunshine of Lady Henry 
Somerset's lavish hospitality. 

But this workaday world of speaking, writing, 
and sociological sympathies was irradiated by 
charming recreation, excursions to historic places, 
short visits to the seaside, and rare glimpses of de- 



BRITISH ORGANIZATIONS 225 

lightful English homes. We know how congenial 
to Miss Willard was the touch of spirits akin to her 
own on an intellectual plane, and she has told us 
in her own incisive way of her love of the companion- 
ship of the wise and good: 

If I were to ask of every person I met the ques- 
tion of all others pertaining to this world that I 
would like to ask, it would be this : Who and how 
many among the great characters of our time have 
you personally known, and what can you tell me 
about them? I confess that every- 
thing about elect souls has a personal interest for 
me; their letters I preserve; their pictures, in simple 
heliotype, fresco my walls; their photographs crowd 
my ever-growing " collections"; their autographs are 
sedulously cherished, and every word, allusion, or 
anecdote which brings them out into clearer perspec- 
tive is of zestful interest always. For I think there 
is much in the theory of an " aura" surrounding every 
one of them, the veiled effluence of the spiritual 
body, perhaps, by which something of absolute 
personality goes with the handwriting and passes 
into the photographed face. This may be wholly 
fanciful, but it is a most pleasant fancy to me and 
peoples my little room with presences noble, gracious, 
and inspiring. 

First among the personalities toward whom Miss 
Willard was drawn in England was Her Majesty 
the Queen. She gives us this picture of the true and 
noble woman, who is first in the hearts of all Eng- 



226 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

lish-speaking people, as she saw her in London at the 
opening of the Imperial Institute: 

We were on hand at ten o'clock although we 
knew the Queen would not arrive until after noon. 
The grandstands with their thirty thousand occu- 
pants were filled a little after ten. Opera glass in 
hand, we watched the gradual rally of what is tech- 
nically known in these parts as "the aristocracy," 
preceded by their gorgeously attired guardians and 
variegated flunkies. The cheering is but slight as 
many great ones come, for the waiting thousands 
are all watching for the Queen. Punctuality is the 
politeness of royalty, and though famous for this 
quality, and promised to the crowd at fifteen minutes 
after twelve, such is the throng through which she 
has to pass, that the Queen does not arrive till half- 
past twelve. 

"Is it not curious, " remarks an American white- 
ribboner whose field-glass is faithfully directed to- 
ward the distance whence the Queen is to emerge, 
"that I can be thinking of all this pageantry, the 
like of which I never saw before and shall not see 
again, and yet away down in my heart I am ob- 
serving ' the noontide hour ' of the white-ribboners?" 

"So am I," was the response, and no more is said 
till the flash of spears is seen, the passing of half a 
dozen carriages containing the lesser lights 01 the 
royal household, and then a carriage drawn by six 
cream-colored horses from Hanover, each gorgeous- 
ly caparisoned in red and gold, the manes being 
entirely covered by tassels of bright color; a plump 
postillion mounted on the left-hand horse of each 



BRITISH ORGANIZATIONS 227 

pair, besides a gentleman in scarlet who leads each 
separate horse; two handsome Highlanders in a high 
seat perched up behind; two fair, attractive young 
Englishwomen, Princess Christian and Princess 
Beatrice, on the front seat, and all alone in the 
middle of the back seat a somewhat stout, short 
figure dressed in black, without a jewel, without a 
ribbon, just a kindly, quiet, dignified lady that any- 
body would have been glad to call his mother or his 
grandmother. At a foot pace the carriage passed, 
amid loud hurrahs, while a bright flag bearing the 
harp of Erin, the Cross of St. Andrew, and the Lions 
of England was suddenly flung out into the sun- 
shine from the top of the tower, and bands of music 
played "God Save the Queen." Victoria and her 
daughters bowed quietly to right and left, the 
Queen simply inclining her head with a most in- 
telligent and kindly expression; and one stalwart 
republican from the New World looked at her with 
dimmed vision as she thought that here and now 
came to a focus all that is best in man 's achievement 
during all the centuries; and that a woman was the 
chief figure in all that gorgeous pageantry — a 
woman who has been true to the sacred duties of 
wife, mother, and friend, true to the magnificent 
powers reposed in her as Queen.. 

I remembered that when at sixteen years of age 
she was told that she was to rule over this mighty 
Empire, there was no exultation in look or tone, but 
with clasped hands she faltered out, "God help me 
to be good." I remembered her tender love and 
loyalty to that pure, noble man to whom she gave 
her heart in early youth, and that when asked the 



228 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

explanation of England's greatness, she said, "It is 
the Bible and Christianity." I knew that England 
did not live up to its high standard, but believed 
she would some day; and that this great reign — 
so rich in triumphs of literature and art, in the spirit 
of civilization, in the uplift of the people, in the 
emancipation of women — has contributed more 
than any other reign the world has known to bring 
about the realization of universal brotherhood. I 
knew that no human being on the globe concentrates 
in his history and influence so many thoughts; that 
this quiet woman is the cynosure of civilization; 
presidents and princes come and go, but she goes on 
and on until it seems as if her reign is likely to be the 
longest, as well as the most beneficent, of which 
history makes mention. 

We waited an hour while the Queen, leaning on 
an ebony cane, disappeared with her children into 
the great temple of industry and achievement, and 
we knew that she had made her speech when the 
chime of bells in the beautiful tower told that the 
inauguration ceremony was complete. We knew 
that Sir Arthur Sullivan had conducted the orchestra, 
that Madame Albani had led the audience in sing- 
ing " God Save the Queen"; and that the chimes were 
to tell us all of the joy — that the climax had come. 

A few minutes later the whole procession passed 
us on its return to Buckingham Palace, and it was 
a touch of nature pleasant indeed to see, when the 
Queen 's sons with their wives and children — Wales, 
Edinburgh, and Connaught with his blithe young 
princess beside him — walked along the pavement 
to meet the carriage of the Queen, and to salute 



BRITISH ORGANIZATIONS 229 

Her Majesty, who smiled on them with the simple 
kindness of a mother. 

Meanwhile the chime of bells rang merrily, each 
bell named after one of the Queen's children, and 
the chime christened "Alexandra" for the Princess 
of Wales. To me as I gazed at the vanishing figure 
that was the center of all this pomp and circumstance 
and knew that I should never see again the Queen of 
England and Empress of India, the music of the bells 
seemed to be saying those matchless words of Tenny- 
son: 

"The love of all thy sons encompass thee, 
The love of all thy daughters cherish thee, 
The love of all thy people comfort thee — 
Till God's love set thee at his side again." 



CHAPTER XIV 
ANSWERING ARMENIA'S CRY 

Before 1892, people had known but vaguely 
that there was such a thing as an Armenian Ques- 
tion. They knew that somewhere beyond the 
mountains in Eastern Turkey, in the land that 
looks toward Ararat and the rising sun, a war was 
going on — a religious war — in which those that 
suffered bore the name of Christians. And yet the 
term "War" implies the possession of weapons on 
both sides and at least a fighting chance for the 
weaker to sell life dearly. Here the weapons were 
all on one side, the other having nothing to oppose 
to them save unmailed breasts, clenched fists, 
attempted flight, and hard endurance of the in- 
evitable. There was not much chance for even 
individual cases of fierce vengeance. In this terrible 
plight were men, women, and children. Even the 
unborn babe was snatched into the world to draw 
its first breath in a shriek of agony, and die. Turks 
were the aggressors, Armenians the sufferers, in 
this strange war, and thus it bore something of the 
character of a race conflict. 

The name Christian stood for honor to marriage 

230 






ANSWERING ARMENIA'S CRY 231 

vows which gave to Armenian women respect for 
themselves and reverential loyalty to their husbands, 
to Armenian men exceptional uprightness in domes- 
tic relations, and if some bearing the name of Chris- 
tians knew little of Christianity vitally, they yet 
held it to the death as a symbol of their national 
life. When, in the fifth century, a Persian king 
tried to force them to exchange the Bible and the 
name Christian for fire worship, they answered: 
"You have your sword, and we have our necks. We 
are not better than those who have gone before us, 
who gave up their goods and their lives for this 
faith." 

For generation after generation the Armenians 
continued a people apart, oppressed, plunder for the 
Turk and the freebooting mountaineer Kurds, who 
fed from their harvests, feasted on their sheep, and 
carried away their wives and daughters, while they 
were forbidden the arms necessary for defense. 

No marvel that the Bible became a sealed book. 
There were only Moslem schools to teach boys to 
read the Koran. When the American missionaries 
first printed the Bible in a cheap form for the people 
and established schools in which they could learn to 
read it, the common people "heard the Word glad- 
ly," and many voluntarily impoverished them- 
selves to the last degree to possess a copy of the 
sacred book. 



232 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

In time matters came to a crisis. The Great 
Powers, partly for reasons of their own, made 
Armenia an " issue/ ' Turkey went wild with the 
craze of greed and pride and domination under the 
name of religion. The madness of the Turkish 
government had method in it. It was a good time 
to end Christian Armenia. So long as it remained 
it was a possible menace, and it was rich plunder. 
The first step was to enlist the Kurds in the Turkish 
army, and set them to police the same Armenian 
fields which they had plundered for three hundred 
years. The victims had not much with which to 
resist, but now and then the dead body of a Kurdish 
ravisher and thief caused the report of a great re- 
volt. Then the order went out from the Sultan, 
and forty villages in their fertile fields were burned. 
Men, women and children died with such bravery, 
refusing life at the price of apostasy, that the far, 
faint sound of their martyrdom stirred Europe to 
shame. 

So they perished — fifty thousand in one year — 
helpless, weaponless. Massacre after massacre 
occurred; men, women, and children were penned 
together as prisoners and slaughtered. Crops were 
carried off, homes burned, shops looted. They died 
anywhere, everywhere, with additional details of 
tortures too horrible for words. And all this went 
on like a slaughter behind closed doors, from which 



ANSWERING ARMENIA'S CRY 233 

a cry, heard now and then, was unnoticed, unre- 
alized, by the passers-by. 

In 1896, certain of the Armenian victims escaped 
in a friendly ship to Marseilles — with their lives 
and hideous memories, but maimed forever, bear- 
ing within and without tokens of suffering. Here 
was a young bride whose husband had been slaugh- 
tered in the night, and the pieces of his body piled 
at her feet; here a man whose aged father had been 
sought out in his own home and slain; here an old 
woman, with a fine, firm, furrowed face, who, along 
with her little grandson, had escaped. But the day 
following, having hidden the little one, as she watch- 
ed for some chance of escape, a neighbor, a trusted 
man, though a Turk, approached. He told her the 
slayers were again seeking the child, and if she 
wished to save him, she must trust the boy to his 
care, for they would not search a Moslem house. 
In her anxiety she brought the child and intrusted 
him to the false friend, only to see him led into the 
courtyard and killed. Here was a poor creature 
burned nearly to death, the Kurd having saturated 
his clothing with kerosene and set it on fire. True 
maids and faithful wives wept continually, hiding 
their faces from sight, for from behind closed doors 
of torture and death, poor wretches, mad with fear, 
covered with blood and wounds, rushed into the 
open street, and fell with a helpless appeal among 



234 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

the passers-by. In the summer of 1896, five hun- 
dred victims escaped from the Turkish shambles to 
Marseilles. The French government was per- 
plexed. It feared "international complications,' ' 
and the poor refugees, penned in an open barn by 
the local authorities, were given a few cents each 
every day or two, with which to buy bread. 

Some one saw in the situation . material for an 
interesting letter, which was afterward published 
by the London and Paris newspapers. This reached 
the eyes of Miss Willard and Lady Henry Somerset, 
just as they were starting on a brief bicycle tour 
through Normandy, seeking much-needed change 
and recuperation before the long winter of work be- 
gan. They were weary and worn almost to the point 
of exhaustion, but determined to go at once to 
Marseilles. Here they promptly opened communi- 
cation with General Booth, of the Salvation Army, 
and the grand old General, from whom they received 
cordial help, at once sent an army officer to Mar- 
seilles. They besieged the local authorities until 
part of a charity hospital was turned over to their 
use. It was three hundred years old, damp, and 
musty, but there were great stone troughs of run- 
ning water in the courtyard. Miss Willard and 
Lady Henry Somerset, with a young missionary 
lady from Turkey, who providentially was able to 
assist them, put things into some degree of comfort- 



ANSWERING ARMENIA'S CRY 235 

able readiness, and there the Armenians were 
brought. 

Their first problem was to procure suitable and 
sufficient food, and soon they were making soup by 
huge kettlefuls, meat and onions and red peppers 
bubbling together, and for each a whole pound of 
good bread was provided. The appetizing odor 
penetrated the bare, long halls, and those of the 
weary creatures who could not assist gathered about 
the doors and eagerly waited. When all was ready, 
great bowls were set in rows along the floor. " Sure- 
ly," said an aged priest, "this is the kitchen of Jesus 
Christ"; and calling a young lad to him, he laid his 
old hands upon the youth's head, and bade him say 
grace. The boy repeated the Lord's Prayer, and 
all the people chanted "Amen." The building was 
soon humming like a hive with hope and life and 
mutual helpfulness. The young men were washing 
clothes and scrubbing the floors; those who could 
were cobbling the shoes of the entire party, and the 
women were cutting and sewing needful garments 
from cloth furnished by Miss Willard and Lady 
Henry Somerset. 

Then arose the problem of permanent provision 
for these victims of man's indifference to man. 
How to find for them places of useful service to others 
and support to themselves was the serious question. 
Arrangements were made for distributing two hun- 



236 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

dred on the Continent; one hundred Lady Henry 
Somerset took to London, leaving the Refuge Hospi- 
tal in the hands of the Salvation Army. Many beg- 
ged to be sent to America, which was "the Lord's 
home for the oppressed," they said, thinking of the 
American missionaries. Two hundred Miss Willard 
brought to this country through the co-operation 
of noble and leading white-ribboners, some of whom 
became personally responsible to the United States 
Government for twenty-five refugees each until 
they could become self-supporting. 

Miss Willard now appealed to America in behalf 
of Armenia. To the country at large, as a nation 
just, brave, and generous; to women as the molders 
of public opinion, reverencing the name of Christ 
and sympathetic with the downtrodden and oppress- 
ed ; to the women of the Woman 's Christian Temper- 
ance Union especially, as sisters loved and faithful 
co-laborers with her for years in every form of endea- 
vor; to Christian ministers, urging them to devote 
a Sunday evening service to the Armenian question, 
and to secure the passage of resolutions of protest 
— to all these the cry went out. The General Offi- 
cers of the National Woman 's Christian Temperance 
Union, under Miss Willard 's leadership, sent the 
following earnest petition to Congress : 

We, the officers of the National Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union, representing a mem- 



ANSWERING ARMENIA'S CRY 237 

bership and following of not fewer than a million 
people, who believe that the protection of the home 
is the supreme duty of statesmen, do hereby most 
earnestly and solemnly beseech you to take such 
action as shall put our home-loving Republic on 
record as having used its moral and material in- 
fluence for the relief of Armenia, the martyr nation, 
in the time of its supreme distress. We respect- 
fully urge that our country should no longer remain 
a silent spectator of the agony and outrage inflicted 
by Moslem savages upon our brother and sister 
Christians, whose only fault is their devotion to 
Christ and their loyalty to a pure home. 

We beg you, therefore, as the legally constituted 
representatives of the wives and mothers of our 
nation, to give heed to our devoted prayer and 
aspiration that America may, through her highest 
legislative authorities, give expression to all the 
world of her abhorrence of the atrocities in Armenia, 
and may make an appropriation from the people's 
money for the relief of our brothers and sisters who 
have been driven to the last extremity by the fatal 
fanaticism of the Sultan and his soldiers. 

These appeals have hardly been equaled in effect 
in the annals of the world. "Sisters, countrymen," 
she cried, "our fellow- worshipers perish because 
they will not apostatize. An ancient nation is be- 
ing slaughtered on the plains of old Bible story. 
Fifty thousand victims slain under God 's sky in the 
slow-moving circle of a year! Women suffering 
indignity and death; children tossed on the bayo- 



238 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

nets of Turkish soldiery; villages burned; starva- 
tion the common lot. Now, even now, while the 
sun is shining on our own safe homes, on the white 
spires of our churches, on our living children in our 
arms, these tortures, these martyrdoms, continue. 
And, behold! Europe, that promised so much and 
so sincerely — Europe, with seven million soldiers, 
and statesmen and diplomats clever as money- 
lenders — has neither statesman, diplomat, nor 
soldier able to save a single helpless life, protect a 
single helpless child, or give a single loaf of bread 
to the starving mouths. The Turk is a savage; our 
statesmen are — over-civilized! The Turk follows 
his will; we follow our interests. His part is the 
less ignoble of the two." 

The practical power of Miss Willard; the cool 
level-headedness which no indignation, pity, or 
scorn could disturb; the quiet judgment as to what 
could be accomplished; the careful choice of means 
to an end, were never better shown than in the gener- 
al "field order" to her comrades of the Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union which followed: "I 
call upon you to organize meetings in every locality, 
urging our government to co-operate with England 
in putting a stop to the massacre and giving protec- 
tion thenceforth to Armenian homes. Let these 
meetings be addressed by the pastors, business men, 
and most capable women. Let money be raised by 
systematic visitation as well as by collection." 



ANSWERING ARMENIA'S CRY 239 

To the women all over the land she said: "May 
God so deal with us at last as we deal with our 
Armenian sisters and brothers, and their little ones, 
in this hour of their overwhelming calamity." 
Appeals like these through the aid of the Armenian 
Committee in New York City went out by the hun- 
dred thousand in every mail. "Angry?" Yes! 
"Full of indignant grief?" Yea, verily! As Mark 
Twain said, "I should be ashamed not to be angry." 
These appeals were also full of good sense, and they 
were effective. Clergymen gave a Sunday to 
Armenia. A million Christians united in petition. 
Money poured in. The Christian Herald, of New 
York, rallied grandly to the rescue, most generous- 
ly supporting the cause. Business men gave. 
Above all were heaped the offerings of the women 
and the Christian Endeavor and other young 
people's societies. They were hearing "the cry 
of the world," and nobly they responded, filling full 
the hands of Clara Barton, who sailed for Turkey 
under the sacred protection of the Red Cross flag, 
bearing seed corn for the fallow fields, food for the 
starving, garments for the unclothed, and hope and 
help for all whom hope and help could reach. 

Of the results that will live in history it is not yet 
time to tell. The work, in many of its aspects, is 
still going on. There is abundant testimony in 
confirmation of Miss Willard's judgment in respect 
to those who were sent to this country, for they are 



240 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

proving themselves honest, intelligent citizens, of 
the kind which America may well be proud to own. 
It is needless to say that this work endeared Miss 
Willard to their hearts as nothing else could have 
done. As one of her co-workers stood by the land- 
ing-stage waiting to greet a party of the immigrants 
from Marseilles arriving in Portland, Maine, a young 
man among them, seeing her white ribbon, sprang 
forward, touched it, and bending low to kiss the 
hand that was extended in greeting, eagerly repeated 
the one word of English that they knew — "Wil- 
lard." 

From one of those welcomed to Massachusetts 
came later this touching tribute : 

"I sympathize with the Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Union for the saddest and most unexpected 
flight of Miss Frances E. Willard, the Lady of ladies. 
We read in newspapers and wept so much, but in 
vain. She passed away, having performed her duty. 
She will not come back again. But we may turn 
to her. This is the lament of my heart for her: 

"O! the single angel on earth, 
How quick you passed away from us! 
O sweet Willard, the only Seraph, 
You sowed the seeds of kindness everywhere! 

"O tender-hearted maiden of the Lord, 
You were a virtuous and blessed Virgin, 
Who embodied Jesus in her active life, 
Who vibrated the strains of the hearts of sisters equally. 



ANSWERING ARMENIA'S CRY 241 

O the great heart, the hearts of hearts, the lady of ladies! 

Who reached the ends of the wide world, 

To uplift the fallen humanity to its Home Paradise. 

You did not spare your last ability, energy, and even your 

'precious life. 
Your whole life has been a sweet prayer, a charming melody, 

an inspiration! 
The body, the earthly tabernacle, failed at last, while the soul 

endured to the end 
And passed away for largest spheres of services. 
O Jesus, bestow in us the double spirit of hers, 
That we may accomplish our best to keep on 
What she began through Thy power on high 
To hasten Thy kingdom, the King of kings, the Lord of 

Lords! 

D. H. Sisliam, for H. Hagopian. 
" P. S. — God be with you till we all meet again in yonder. 
'How sweet and beautiful it is to be with God.' 
Very cordially yours, 

The Same." 

The weeks spent in Marseilles were followed by 
days of great weariness for Miss Willard, and reach- 
ing America in time for the National Convention 
in St. Louis in November, 1896, she came before 
her beloved constituency with an annual message 
unwritten save on the "red tablets of her heart." 

But she talked out of that great heart as never 
before, her eager listeners cheering her on with 
responsive enthusiasm, and in closing an address 
resistless in its compact force she said: 

I had begun to dictate little slips of my address 
when all of a sudden the savages of the Sultan put 
the knife to the throat and the big bludgeon to the 



242 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

head of the Armenians in Constantinople, and soon 
after we heard of the refugees in Marseilles, with- 
out shelter or food. Then something said to me, 
"Why, those Armenians stand for your ideas, the 
white-ribbon ideas; the sanctity of home life, the 
faithful loyalty of one man to one woman; and they 
have illustrated this like no other nation on the face 
of the earth; they lived it centuries before Mo- 
hammed had ever conceived his vile religion which 
degrades manhood, puts lust instead of love, and 
makes woman a bond-slave of man in the harem to 
which he has consigned her." And so I said : " Yes, 
these are they whom I would like most of all to help ; 
they love the Gospel of our Lord and they have laid 
their lives upon the altar for Christ." 

And then our missionaries told me how women 
had leaped into the rivers rather than have the 
Turk pounce with his heavy hand upon them; they 
told me of members of their schools, sweet young- 
girls, who had thrown themselves into the flames of 
the Christian church at Sassoun because the Turkish 
officers pursued the youngest and fairest of them to 
take them away. They told me things not lawful 
to utter of what young husbands suffered in the 
presence of the young wives who were true to them 
and who with them endured a double death in the 
open streets. And I said in my heart, "That is 
God's nation, and I am going to Marseilles to help." 

Now, I only want to say one thing more, though 
I kept it as a little secret, but you do not know what 
waves and storms I came over to get here. Some 
of the friends of Armenia in the dear old mother 
country urged me to go to Jerusalem and see the 



ANSWERING ARMENIA'S CRY 243 

Patriarch, whom the Sultan has dismissed, to see 
if I could not bring him to England to stand up in 
his patriarchal robes and tell his story to the people. 
There was another plan to go to the help of the 
Catholicus, who is at the head of the whole Armen- 
ian church, and who has an army of refugees around 
him; or to Cyprus, where it is proposed to found a 
colony for the women and children. Oh, it all 
looked so heavenly to do; but I said, "There are older 
ties; there is a deep, throbbing chord between me and 
the white-ribbon women of my country, and though 
I could not leave England until I knew whether 
my native land would welcome the Armenians, I 
came to you with a glad heart, although there w T as 
work — a holy work — and a great-hearted com- 
rade whom I left behind. 



CHAPTER XV 

OLD HAUNTS AND HOMES REVISITED 

" 'Tis not in battles that from youth we train 
The governor who must be wise and good, 

And temper with the sternness of the brain 

Thoughts motherly, and meet as womanhood. 

Wisdom doth live with children round her knees: 
Books, leisure, perfect freedom, and the talk 
Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk 

Of the mind's business: these are the degrees 

By which true Sway doth mount; this is the stalk 

True Power doth grow on; and her rights are these." 

Wordsworth's sonnet, the last words Miss Willard 
committed to memory, gives her ideal of home. 
"Thoughts motherly, and meet as womanhood," 
blessed her childhood, and, a woman, she went out 
to bless the homes of all the world. The sanctities 
of motherhood were not denied her, since she made 
sweeter the sleep and safer the steps of every little 
child. She was a fireside being and found a place by 
a hundred hearths, consecrating and quickening the 
flame that was kindled on each, while she loved her 
own home with all the purity and enthusiasm of her 
nature. 

When we remember the child in her daily frolics 
and rambles and tender twilight dreamings at 

244 



OLD HAUNTS AND HOMES REVISITED 245 

Forest Home, the young woman planting trees with 
her father in Evanston and noting all the magic play 
of nature, we comprehend that home was not a 
platitude but a plenitude to this woman of ideals. 
In its quintessence of intimacy, endearment, and 
sympathy it comforted her, but as a type of universal 
kindness it warmed her imagination. Her soul 
builded ever "more stately mansions," but it never 
forgot its primitive surroundings, its growing-cells. 
Nature, Humanity, God, became her "dwelling 
place," through which she passed right graciously 
to her last home, yet loving to linger at each dear 
stopping place, each tenement of all the way. Fast 
outgrowing the earthly garment of the flesh, Miss 
Willard turned in these last months with all her 
tenacious purpose toward revisiting those places 
which had sheltered her as child, maiden, and wom- 
an, shutting her away, in their sweet restfulness, 
from the world to which she belonged. 

In the mother country she had gone through 
quiet fields and flowery byways to the village of 
Horsmonden, in Kent, where lived those stanch 
English lives that bequeathed to their descendants 
such resistless courage and unspent energy. In the 
registry of the parish church she saw the name of 
Simon Willard, with the date of his baptism, and 
under the spell of by-gone years, standing in the 
high-perched pulpit, she recited Mrs. Hemans ' hymn : 



246 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

"The breaking waves dashed high 
On a stern and rockbound coast, 
And the woods against a stormy sky 
Their giant branches tossed; 

"And the heavy night hung dark 

The hills and waters o'er, 
When a band of exiles moored their bark 
On the wild New England shore." 

It was the first home revisited, a mystic and sen- 
tient hour for our leader, a realization of those primal 
unities which make America one with England. 
The old Horsmonden church now holds a commem- 
orative tablet presented by Miss Willard as an ex- 
pression of her gratitude for the inheritance of "a 
good great name." 

After the St. Louis Convention in November, 
1896, Castile, New York, was selected as a winter 
residence and became a genuine home through the 
constant thoughtfulness and gracious personality 
of the presiding genius of its sanitarium, Dr. Cordelia 
A. Greene, whom Miss Willard was wont to describe 
as the essence of strength and gentleness in combina- 
tion, a chemical amalgam of scientist and saint. 
The home group that drew about Miss Willard in 
pretty "Daily Cottage" included a blessed mother 
and her trio of daughters, and was the circle closest 
to her whose practical thought and genial fancy 
directed and beautified the winter. 

Of Castile Miss Willard writes : " I wish you could 



OLD HAUNTS AND HOMES REVISITED 247 

see this little village on top of its hill and under its 
ice and snow. It abounds in fine tall elms and 
maples, although they do not console one very much 
these days! But its evergreens are a real comfort, 
a protection when we sit out 'breathing deeply' on 
these cold wintry mornings, and sometimes when the 
heavens are brilliant and the angle of vision just 
right, I can see the flush of leaves that are to be in the 
top of a lovely willow that lifts its symmetrical 
proportions just across the street." 

This sensitiveness to the charms of nature gave 
vividness and pathos to every phase of Miss Wil- 
lard 's home life, even when she made home of tran- 
sient tarrying places where she stopped but a day. 
Her acute, acquisitive spirit attracted to itself imme- 
diately the distinguishing qualities of the landscape. 
The mind that saw "the flush of leaves that are to 
be" naturally saw infinite things besides, and the 
fragile form accentuated the mystery and variety 
of the soul 's expression. 

A delightful interruption to the usual routine was 
Miss Susan B. Anthony's visit, the experience of 
which Miss Willard shared with her comrades in a 
letter to The Union Signal: "It was a bright sunny 
day in this upland town, fifteen hundred feet above 
the sea level. I cleared my writing room for our 

dear friend, and A went to the station to meet 

her. We gathered in a group at the door as they 



248 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

drew up, it being my intention to 'help Susan out.' 
But I saw that anybody less swift of foot than a 
football expert need make no such attempt. Forth 
stepped Miss Anthony, seventy-seven years of age, 
with traveling bag and umbrella, her movements 
as balanced and. agile as they were a half -century 
ago, her face lighting up with smiles and the cheery 
'How are you?' as she walked in, bringing a breezi- 
ness that seemed perennial. As a matter of course, 
we sat down for a talk, which continued with slight 
interruption until the afternoon of the next day, 
each one 'getting in a word' as opportunity offered, 
and very likely each saying to herself, 'There, she 
has stopped to breathe; now comes my chance.'" 

This picture of Miss Willard as a hostess will be 
widely recognized. Outgoing, inclusive, comprehen- 
sive, instantly en rapport with her guest, feeling 
with electric rapidity the subtle combination of the 
forces to be met, she rose to every occasion and 
adapted herself perfectly to the varying phases of 
thought and feeling in other minds. It was at 
Castile as she sped her parting guest, Mrs. J. K. 
Barney, of Rhode Island, just starting for Australia 
as our white-ribbon missionary, that Miss Willard 
gave utterance to such vigorous words of faith in 
the work and the worker as sent her forth like an 
officer in the great army inspired by the commands 
of a general. Never did Miss Willard 's working 



OLD HAUNTS AND HOMES REVISITED 249 

power seem more creative. Editorials, articles for 
the newspapers; plans for a birthday celebration for 
Neal Dow; eager sympathy and effort for Armenia; 
"A Woman's Plea for the Purification of the Press"; 
plans for the "Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union New Year," made during visits from a number 
of temperance experts; a "lift" for the local union 
when dearly loved white-ribboners spoke under its 
auspices; an evening of fun for the sanitarium pa- 
tients — all these entered into the winter 's activity. 
With spring's coming she drooped; the physical 
energy that had been gained by unfailing response 
to her wise physician's behests slowly ebbed away, 
and it was believed a stay at Atlantic City would 
refresh the weary worker. With deep concern it 
was seen that ocean breeze and varied seaside life 
failed to bring the wished-for strength. For three 
weeks she was in the open air, much of the time in 
her rolling chair, looking out over the wide expanse of 
ocean, dictating correspondence and articles, letting 
the tides of human life and the sea make fuller her 
spirit's vigor, while the body gained only meagre 
treasure of strength, and the pathetic whiteness of 
her face told its own sad story. During the stay 
in Atlantic City an excursion was made to Washing- 
ton, D. C, where Miss Willard spent a memorable 
Sunday as a guest at Cedar Hill, the home of Mrs. 
Frederick Douglass. Returning to the seashore, 



250 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

she welcomed Miss Jackson, then on her way to 
Germany, and a week of reminiscence and prophecy 
was given to these friends of "Auld Lang Syne." 
It was fitting that this their last visit together should 
take place in New Jersey, near the hospitable Jack- 
son home from which years ago they had set out 
upon their European travels. On May sixth Miss 
Willard spoke in Broadway Tabernacle, New York 
City , fulfilling a long-deferred promise that an address 
should be given by the National President to the 
state securing the largest number of new members 
during the year, and a similar promise was redeemed 
for New Jersey by an address at Jersey City five 
evenings later. 

Then for five weeks in the shadow of Cambridge 
University she rested by a congenial fireside and 
enjoyed in her hostess a woman of rare culture and 
most entertaining originality. Whoever knows 
Cambridge needs no description of its richness of 
romance and erudition, and the rare charm of its 
gracious hospitality. Miss Willard took daily drives 
behind a gentle, slow-paced Norwegian pony lent 
her by the poet Longfellow's daughter, "Laughing 
Allegra." "How little I thought," said the guest, 
"when a child in my linsey-woolsey gown on a Wis- 
consin farm, that 'Laughing Allegra' would ever 
lend me her pony, but so it was to be. It was prob- 
ably because I knew and loved them long ago that 



OLD HAUNTS AND HOMES REVISITED 251 

I am near them now." Here in the quiet family 
life, ministered to by devoted friends, Miss Willard 
became stronger, and in June she started northward 
toward the hills, settling for the summer months at 
Hotel Ponemah, in Milford Springs, eight hundred 
feet above the quiet little village of Amherst, New 
Hampshire, noble in situation with a restful prospect 
of farm lands and hills filling the wide western hori- 
zon. In the weeks that followed, Nature sought 
her child, and she lent her ear and eye to all the 
tender, coaxing sights and signs about her. Laying 
her tired head upon that tireless heart, breathing 
deep fragrant inhalations, she heard those well- 
known chirpings and whisperings, the speech of 
insect and leaf that had wooed her in her girlhood. 
On a drive between the hotel and Milford, she count- 
ed seventy varieties of trees and shrubs and recorded 
them for her pleasure. Noting intently every pass- 
ing expression of summer — that last sweet summer 
of her earthly life — she dwelt with childlike joy 
on every fern and flower and singing bird. Her 
love of birds was more than a fondness; it was an 
affinity. As a girl, she had dreamed of all things free, 
and her last verse-writing was to celebrate that long- 
ing for flight which she shared with every winged 
thing. But even into this summer idyl would break 
the human love, the longing for distant friends, or the 
ever-present mindfulness of whatever by her side 



252 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

might creep or cling, and we note this memorandum 
carefully fastened to her dressing table and as care- 
fully carried out : " August 17 — Go to see the ninety- 
five year old lady; also the paralyzed woman who 
lives at the foot of the hill. Take to each of them 
some magazine, or picture book, or something." 

The village of Chesham, once a part of Dublin, 
New Hampshire, is but a few miles west of Milford 
Springs, and there, toward the last of the season, 
Miss Willard spent a happy holiday at Brookside 
Farm with the descendants of her great-great-grand- 
father, Elder Elijah Willard, who for forty years 
preached in the Baptist church of the village. Over 
shady roads reminding her of English lanes she drove 
through sloping farm country in sight of Mount 
Monadnock, recounting the adventures of "that 
trip with father" forty years before, when she went 
East to take "Nineteen Beautiful Years" for publi- 
cation, and when all the relatives were visited and the 
first mountain was seen by the prairie-girl traveler. 
Sunday morning she sat in the old church that had 
been but little changed in the changing years, and 
at the young people 's service of praise in the even- 
ing she spoke tender words of recollection and cheer. 
She drove up the steep hills to the low-studded home- 
stead in which Elder Willard lived and died, and 
standing on the quaint porch, shading her eyes with 
her delicate hand, she drank her fill of majestic 



< 



OLD HAUNTS AND HOMES REVISITED 253 

Monadnock, and turning to Mount Willard on her 
right remarked: "Yes, these are the old haunts 
from which I received my original fibers." 

Monday morning, after a chat with an aged farmer 
who had known the Elder well and who every few 
minutes would say with strong emphasis, "Yes, 
Elder Willard was a beautiful man," Miss Willard 
drove to her ancestor's grave and placed there a 
cluster of water lilies, the floral emblem of the 
World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union. 
Many calls were made on those related by ties of 
kindred and affection to the pastor beloved, many 
stories of his progressive views and sound judgment 
were enjoyed, and Miss Willard was like a happy 
child, her overflowing spirits communicating them- 
selves to all about her. 

August seventh found her in Ogunquit, the guest 
of near and dear friends summering there. These 
days on the rugged Maine coast had in them the 
true witchery of the sea. A thoroughgoing clam- 
bake, a ride on the white, smooth beach on her bi- 
cycle, dictating daily from a rock if not a rocking- 
chair, exulting in the sunlight and the sunsets, the 
days went on full of thought for the conventions 
soon to meet. Portland was close at hand, and for 
a few days she was Mrs. Stevens' guest in that city 
while earnest convention plans were made with her 
closest coadjutors in National and World's work. 



254 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

Touching, in the light of days to be, was her inter- 
view at this time with General Neal Dow; a talk 
keyed to the harmony of heaven between two 
associated in lifework and so soon to enter upon 
eternal endeavor. 

With the last days of August she said good-by to 
the sea "down in the haven," and felt again the 
impulse of the hill country as she started to visit the 
homes of her father and mother in Vermont. They 
were a hill-born race and acquired among that up- 
lifted company their wide-eyed vision. Eleven 
miles only separated the lad and lassie, Josiah and 
Mary. The girl grew on the breezy plateau of 
Danville, with its distant sky-line curved with 
mountains and its hushed pasture lands — a far-see- 
ing place — and she did not know the boy who from 
the heights above Wheelock Hollow was looking 
out on the same magnificent range of the White 
Mountains. Nature was in her most imperial mood 
that August thirtieth when Miss Willard stood on the 
spot where her revered mother had been given to the 
world, and planted a fragrant balsam and a sturdy 
pine, symbols of the two lives that had meant the 
most to her. There, surrounded by home-folk who 
claimed her as a daughter, a sister, a mother be- 
loved, she made one of those speeches which 
search out the heart. Old men and women wept 
like children, and one man summed it up in a sen- 



OLD HAUNTS AND HOMES REVISITED 255 

tence as the most "homey talk" he had ever heard. 
Oh, the blessed memory of that day! Writes one 
who was present: "Do you remember how with 
almost girlish glee she threw the earth over the roots 
of the trees and dashed the water on?" As she drove 
from the village, followed by the love and " God bless 
you" of the country folk, there were two stopping 
places on the way — one to visit the quiet grave- 
yard, where she lovingly placed flowers on the hillock 
that marked the resting place of "mother's deskmate 
in the long ago," the other to enter the home of an 
invalid white-ribboner and to leave with her bright 
blossoms before the hand that eagerly grasped 
them should be still forever. From Danville she 
drove to Wheelock, planted snowball bushes at her 
uncle 's grave, visited the Willard Farm — her fa- 
ther 's birthplace — and was loath to leave the 
"sugar bush," whose kingly maples were the boys' 
most worshiped sylvan divinities. 

Once more in Milford Springs, she reveled in 
Shakespeare 's plays, English and American history, 
and held "quiz classes" in the twilight hours under 
the trees, catching the first notes of autumn 's melo- 
dy, the soft low strain of Nature's lullaby. She 
took a lingering farewell of loving mother earth. 
Can we picture it — this slight figure with its 
pathetic movements of weariness and occasional 
buoyant gestures of life and expectancy? Here 



256 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

the sisters, Mary (from Germany) and Frances, 
spent that day together, of which Mrs. Willard 
writes: "Frances could not talk fast enough. She 
wanted me to know so many things, old secrets, new 
hopes and plans. How heavenly she was, even 
then ! Out in the morning sunshine on the veranda 
she threw open her arms to the sky and exclaimed, 
1 universe, what thou desirest I desire !' So at one 
was she with the divine of heaven and earth, so 
heavenly, at the same time never so human. I have 
rarely seen her in a more tender, loving attitude 
toward every friend of now and then. Her very 
last whisper in my ear at the station was one that 
breathed love of kin and fellowship with all of us 
who are left to mourn her." 

The poetry of friendship and nature were but a 
part of those halcyon days. During the hours 
bounded by the sunrise and the sunset, thought at its 
intensest stretch kept pace with time, and it was 
her spirit that got through the work. Yet her 
strength seemed largely regained, and she went 
bravely forward with preparations for the conven- 
tion — that yearly home-coming she loved the best 
of all. The vacation over, a soft September day 
was spent in Still River, Massachusetts, on her way 
to Skaneateles, New York. Still River held the 
attraction of a home built by Henry Willard, great- 
grandfather of Miss Willard 's great-grandfather, 



OLD HAUNTS AND HOMES REVISITED 257 

and a gifted relative, a true Willard, who with his 
two maiden sisters entertained her. In a Quaker 
home at Skaneateles, a home full of memory's 
pictures, the charming colonial country seat of one 
very dear, Miss Willard completed her addresses 
for Toronto and Buffalo, and all too soon came the 
hour for stepping out into the great world that 
awaited her. 

In Toronto, in October, Miss Willard, in a foreign 
yet a home land, presented the crowning message 
of her life. She was strong in her beauty, and never 
had she seemed so lifted up in the sweep of her 
thought and the brilliancy of her leadership. On 
"Children's Night," in Massey Music Hall, when 
she stood a graceful figure, her face aglow with light 
and love against a background of one thousand 
little people waving to her their enthusiastic welcome, 
many hearts said she will never look nearer to 
heaven than she does to-night, no matter how many 
years of her pilgrimage remain. 

At Buffalo, in the convention that followed, some 
who "saw" tell us they detected already the look 
of change upon her face, that expression which 
separates mortals about to become immortal. Cer- 
tainly when in an hour of transcendent renunciation 
she was ready to give home and the new year of her 
life upon which she had just entered to the lifting 
of a material burden far out-measuring her fragile 



258 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

health, her friends felt something of the limitless 
strength of her spirit. One picture of those days 
will be forever treasured, when, behind the flower- 
laden desk, the president, still directing the thousand 
women before her, bent to write a message to a 
college girl whose heart was breaking with her first 
sorrow, and in the midst of all the queenly homage 
of the hour "forgot herself " as ever in the sweet 
consideration of another life. It was a typical 
moment in the career of the beautiful crowned wom- 
anhood whose boundless spiritual affluence could 
plan for humanity, or touch with a mother's pity 
the grief of the tenderest human thing. 

At the close of the Buffalo convention Miss Wil- 
lard went to Churchville, New York, her birthplace, 
for a Sunday with beloved relatives. The morning 
was spent with the only surviving relative of her 
mother's generation, "Aunt Sarah," and in the 
afternoon she met the white-ribboners in the Metho- 
dist church. After the service, two by two they 
walked to the house where Miss Willard was born. 
Seeking out the very room into which the little 
stranger came, standing closely about their leader, 
they heard her talk of motherhood and of the great 
home to which she was looking, now that her 
mother's ear would never again hear her returning 
footsteps. It was in that room the mother-love had 
hung over the cradle of the child Frances, as the star 



OLD HAUNTS AND HOMES REVISITED 259 

hung over the babe in the manger of Bethlehem. 
It was her coming that called forth these words of 
Mother Willard in the last year of her earthly life : 

"Motherhood is life's richest and most delicious 
romance. And sitting now in the sunshine calm 
and sweet, with all my precious ones on the other 
side save only the daughter who so faithfully 
cherishes me here, I thank God that he ever said to 
me * Bring up this child for me in the love of human- 
ity and the expectation of immortal life.' My life 
could not have held more joy, if some white-robed 
messenger of the skies had come to me and said, ' I 
will send a spiritual being into your arms and home. 
It is a momentous charge, potent for good or evil, 
but I will help you. Do not fear. Therefore, 
mother, step softly. Joy shall be the accepted 
creed of this young immortal in all the coming years. 
This child shall herald your example and counsels 
when you are resting from your labors.' " 

After a fond good-by to Aunt Sarah and her kin- 
dred beloved, Miss Willard, repeating the first 
journey of her life, went westward to Oberlin, where 
Mary was born. Here again in the old home she 
received greetings from friends and relatives, held 
glad converse with her first Forest Home teacher, 
addressed a Woman's Christian Temperance Union 
gathering in the afternoon and a public meeting 
later, where the children of the Loyal Temperance 



260 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

Legion flocked in; attended prayers in the college 
chapel with memories of President Finney and the 
illustrious Christian manhood and womanhood his 
influence had helped to form. 

She tarried but a day amid these dear scenes, and 
reaching Chicago was the warmly welcomed guest 
— nay — beloved member of the family, in the 
artistic home of a loved cousin. There she received 
all that a tender, unselfish, and sisterly heart could 
devise to upbuild her physically and to shelter her 
from the various engagements and demands that 
came whenever she returned to her home city. Fre- 
quent visits to Evanston were more significant than 
any home-goings. The hours in the "rifted nest," 
as she now styled Rest Cottage, had pathetic 
moments, while even the thoughtful kindness of 
friends old and new who entertained her and the 
genial circle of Evanston neighbors could not break 
the sense of homelessness more poignant here than 
anywhere else in the world. She had loved this 
roof-tree as only those can who turn to it from other 
quarters, who rest in it after many wanderings. 

It is pleasant to think of the cheery social events 
in which Miss Willard was able to take part in 
Chicago and Evanston, though never did she work 
more untiringly for white-ribbon interests. It was 
particularly gratifying to her to address the students 
of the Northwestern and Chicago Universities, 



OLD HAUNTS AND HOMES REVISITED 261 

the quaintness and sweetness of her words and her 
lovely presence drawing to her the hearts of her 
younger brothers and sisters, and her evident physi- 
cal frailness arousing their chivalric sympathy. 

In the circle of home with her kindred on Thanks- 
giving Day and at Christmas time, she was full of 
merry playfulness, or with an instant change of 
thought would say grace at table, bringing the di- 
vine realities so near as to move all to tears. Her 
jubilant alto voice joined in all the songs with only 
a tremolo in "Home, Sweet Home," which was sung 
around the children's Christmas tree. How varied 
and sparkling was her table talk while the precious 
body took less of nourishment than the mind gave 
out to others! The story of those hours when the 
vase-like purity of her being was so sheer a screen 
for the flame of her soul, cannot be told. Reminis- 
cence and suggestion will not give again the count- 
less intimations of ethereal beauty which she shed 
about her. 

New Year's Day, 1898, was to see again at Janes- 
ville, Wisconsin, the woman of ripe years, of grand 
achievement, and of gentle, perfected womanhood, 
as it had seen her go out a mere maiden long ago. 
Here her last public address was given in the Con- 
gregational church, with the friends of her childhood 
days meeting the glance of her tender eyes as she 
spoke words of life and love concerning the sanctity 



262 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

of the home, and said with hand lifted in blessing as 
she left the pulpit, "Good-by, dear friends of my 
loved childhood 's home, good-by — perhaps for- 
ever — and if forever, may we meet in our home in 
heaven." With her cousins she revisited Forest 
Home, stood on the old veranda, talked with the 
bright-faced teacher and children in the schoolhouse 
near by. This home more than any other had been 
inwrought into her life and must have given her the 
conviction that "homes are as immortal as folks, and 
in their essence will be of us in the real and better 
and oncoming life." 



CHAPTER XVI 

TRANSLATION 

"We shall never climb to heaven by making it 
our life-long motto to save ourselves," said Miss 
Willard in her last address before the National 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union. (Buffalo, 
1897.) "The process is too selfish. The business 
of the true Christian is coming to be, 'All for each 
and each for all,' and in the honest purpose to realize 
its every-day meaning we acquire a heart at leisure 
from itself, and in no other way. 

"On my recent birthday it came to me that I 
could gain no truer concept of God than by holding 
to the presence of Him who is the Way, the Truth 
and the Life, as ever tenderly smiling on me and 
saying, * Receive My Spirit,' and that in the halo 
around His head I saw the words, 'With what 
measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. 5 
'Receive my spirit!' That is life's safest and most 
alluring voice, but there will come a day when we 
shall utter those great words back again, 'Lord 
Jesus, receive my spirit,' and then the mystery of 
life, its discipline, its joys and grief will end, and the 
glad mystery of death will work out the transfer 
to other realms of the Infinite Power. 

263 



264 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

"Christ is to me, as I move forward to the bourne 
whence we do not return, more and more the vital 
center of all that is worth cherishing in this or any 
world, and by His words, that are life, I seek to be 
transformed into the spirit of His mind." 

As we listened to Miss Willard 's inspired message 
we little realized that, before many weeks had passed, 
she would dwell in the finer heavenly body which 
she so often said "is like this one but is suited to 
beings who breathe ether instead of air — the body 
celestial in which the potent human soul shall move 
right onward in its growth toward perfectness." 

Early in the year we went to New York, the cos- 
mopolitan city that links our great republic with 
every other. Guests of one of New York's leading 
hotels, our faithful stenographer with us, the days 
passed swiftly and happily in the usual routine of 
dictating correspondence and articles and in filling 
dates for conferences and lectures. Gradually Miss 
Willard shortened her hours of work. "Here in the 
body pent" was her frequent pathetic remark as 
she battled against great physical weariness. Soon 
she yielded to our anxious solicitations; all work 
was laid aside, and she was in the skillful care of 
doctor and nurse. The wakeful hours of the night 
were solaced by a repetition of the poems and psalms 
she loved and which I had long ago memorized. 

From the first of her illness she had felt she might 



TRANSLATION 265 

not recover, but her physician was hopeful and 
assured her that her earthly work was not done. 

Every day she asked lovingly about her cherished 
associates in white-ribbon work and dictated loving 
messages to them. "Blessed are the inclusive, for 
they shall be included," was a beatitude original 
with her, and was exemplified in her altruistic life. 
Our great leader, whose heart with extraordinary 
gentleness went out to all, was tenderly and prayer- 
fully remembered by her world-wide constituency, 
who were heart-broken at the tidings of her critical 
illness. "Do they know how ill I am?" Miss Wil- 
lard asked, on one of the very last sad days, when she 
had received sympathetic messages from her com- 
rades and friends. I replied, "Yes; they do know, 
and they are all so sorry," and, mentioning each 
name, I added, "They are all sending you such 
beautiful letters, telegrams, and flowers." "How 
good!" said the tender voice; "give each of them my 
love." 

Reading aloud from her favorite books, I would 
often be interrupted by the question, asked with 
irresistible charm, "Could I dictate just one very 
important letter?" or, "I think, dear, you will have 
to get a paper and pencil and let me put something 
down that must be done, and don't you forget." 

Her last "memorandum" was given me one week 
before her home-going. "Don't fail to put it 



266 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

down," she began, "that I have always recognized 
the splendid work done in 1874 by the women of 
Washington Court House, and that while I regard 
Hillsboro as the cradle of the Crusade, Washington 
Court House is the crown," and she added, "Fredonia 
must always be remembered as the home of the first 
local Woman's Christian Temperance Union. If 
I don 't get well you must send some souvenir and a 
message of special remembrance to Mother Thomp- 
son, and to all the Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union pioneers." 

Speaking with her usual optimism of the future 
of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, she 
said earnestly: "There have never been such 
women as our white-ribboners ; so large-minded, so 
generous, such patriots, such Christians. We have 
had a great, beautiful past, and the people don't 
know it; they think we are fanatics. It has been 
a great fight, and they'll never know what we have 
been through. Oh, how I want our women to have 
a new concept of religion ! The religion of the world 
is a religion of love; it is a home religion; it is a 
religion of peace; and tell them — tell them not to 
forget it is a religion of patriotism. We have set 
up to be patriots, we white-ribboners, and we have 
fought amidst much ostracism. Tell our white- 
ribboners to study the New Testament. I love the 
New Testament. No human being has ever con- 



TRANSLATION 267 

ceived as he should what the New Testament means 
by loyalty to Christ." Later, when alone with this 
precious friend, she pointed to a picture of the 
Christ, a life-size drawing from one of Hoffman's 
paintings. This was a Christmas gift from Lady 
Henry Somerset, and as Miss Willard looked lov- 
ingly toward it she said: "He can do everything 
for us." 

A niece, Mrs. Katherine Willard Baldwin, 
brought lilies of the valley to her aunt, saying as 
she placed them in her hand, "Here are some of 
grandma's flowers for you, dear Aunt Frank." 
Beds of these fragrant lilies used to nestle close to 
Rest Cottage, and were Mrs. Willard 's pride and 
delight. When Katherine 's sister Mary was a wee 
tot she was asked by her grandmother one Sunday 
morning what the minister had preached about. 
It was early spring, the beautiful lilies were in full 
bloom, and the sweet child responded, "Why, grand- 
ma, he talked about the lily of the valley of the 
shadow." As our best beloved held the flowers, 
her face brightened and she murmured, "Lilies of 
the valley — of the shadow." Then, though we 
little dreamed it, came the last talk with one of her 
own kindred, which included loving messages to 
her sister, Mrs. Mary B. Willard, in Berlin, and to 
each of the nephews and nieces. This conversation 
reminded Miss Willard of Evanston days, and 



FRANCES E. WILLARD 

later I was given commissions regarding her neigh- 
bors and friends in the old home, and a special 
message to her dear and long-time friend, 
Katherine A. Jackson. Miss Willard lived over 
the Janesville days at Forest Home, and talked 
of Rock River and her happy childhood, alluding 
also in loving terms to relatives in her birthplace, 
Churchville, New York, while the poor, weary head 
tossed incessantly from side to side. Night came, 
and we vainly tried to quiet her sleep, and as I knelt 
beside her she said, "Sing, 'Hush, My Babe'; per- 
haps that would put me to sleep." I sang it over 
and over until I heard her say, "How strange it is! 
I should think that would make me sleep, you sing 
it so sweetly. Suppose you try, * Gently, Lord." , 
In Rest Cottage days that was a favorite hymn at 
family prayers, and one morning, long ago, she had 
changed the second line, which reads, "Through 
this gloomy vale of tears," to one more consonant 
with her concept of life, "Through this vale of smiles 
and tears," and thus I sang it to her now. On reach- 
ing the last two lines I could not recall the words. 
She quickly prompted me by saying, "Till, by 
angel bands," and thinking only of her, I finished 

the hymn: 

" Till, by angel bands attended, 
I awake among the blest." 

"Oh, no, not I; it's we, it's always we; Christianity 
is we, not I; you know it's our Father, don't 



TRANSLATION 269 

forget that. Now sing it again, please, and sing 
it 'we.'" 

Morning dawned, but no rest beyond a few mo- 
ments ' unconsciousness had come to soothe or to 
restore. Mrs. Stevens of Maine had come to us 
several days before in response to my earnest 
request, and early this morning she sat for a few mo- 
ments by the side of her beloved friend and comrade 
in the battles of the Lord. As Miss Willard felt 
the hand laid tenderly upon her own she looked 
earnestly into "Stevie's" face, saying, "I felt sure 
that you would come." 

The awful fear in our hearts grew more intense as 
evening came. Suddenly Miss Willard gazed in- 
tently on the picture directly opposite her bed. Her 
eyes seemed to meet those of the compassionate 
Christ, and with the old eloquence in her voice, in 
the stillness of that never-to-be-forgotten night she 
exclaimed : 

" 'I am Merlin, and I am dying, 
But I'll follow the Gleam.' 

"I'm getting so tired; how can I follow it much 
longer? He giveth His beloved sleep, but oh, some- 
times He is a long time doing it. The next time 
you read * De Prof undis ' you will think of this day, 
the longest and hardest of my whole life. Oh, let 
me go away; let me be in peace; I am so safe with 
Him. He has other worlds, and I want to go! I 



270 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

have always believed in Christ ; He is the incarnation 
of God." 

Toward morning she whispered, "I want to speak 
to you quite alone,' * and bending near her to catch 
every faintly uttered word, I received this sacred 
message: "I want to say what Mary and I used to 
say to each other away back in the old days on the 
farm when we were going to sleep. I would say to 
Mary, *I ask your pardon and I thank you,' and she 
would say, *I freely forgive you and welcome,' and 
then we would change about with the same sweet 
words of forgiveness and gratitude. I want to say 
that to you, and to every white-ribboner and to 
everybody." 

In the morning she rallied, and remembering it 
was the day for "the letter from home," as she called 
our official paper, The Union Signal, she said, "Please 
let me sit up and let me have our beautiful Signal." 
She was soon laid back upon the pillows and seemed 
to be unconscious when a friend came into the room. 
As her hand was quietly touched she looked up, and 
recognizing the kind face of her comrade, said with 
a faint smile, "I've crept in with mother and it is 
the same beautiful world and the same people; 
remember that — it's just the same." 

Quietly as a babe in its mother 's arms she now fell 
asleep, and though we knew it not "the dew of 
eternity was soon to fall upon her forehead." "She 



TRANSLATION 271 

had come to the borderland of this closely curtained 
world!" 

Only once again did she speak to us, when about 
noon the little, thin, white hand — that active, 
eloquent hand — was raised in an effort to point 
upward, and we listened for the last time on earth 
to the voice that to thousands has surpassed all 
others in its marvelous sweetness and magnetic 
power. It was like the lovely and pathetic strain 
from an ^Eolian harp on which heavenly zephyrs 
were breathing, and she must even then have caught 
some glimpse of those other worlds for which she 
longed as she said, in tones of utmost content, 
"How beautiful it is to be with God." 

As twilight fell, hope died in our yearning hearts, 
for we saw that the full glory of another life was 
soon to break o'er our loved one's earthly horizon. 
Kneeling about her bed, with the faithful nurses who 
had come to love their patient as a sister, we silently 
watched while the life immortal, the life more abun- 
dant, came in its fullness to this inclusive soul, whose 
wish, cherished from her youth, that she might go, 
not like a peasant to a palace, but as a child to her 
Father's home, was about to be fulfilled. A few 
friends who had come to the hotel to make inquiries 
joined the silent and grief-stricken group. Slowly 
the hours passed with no recognition of the loved 
ones about her. There came an intent upward gaze 



272 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

of the heavenly blue eyes, a few tired sighs, and at 
the "noon hour" of the night Frances Willard was 

" Born into beauty 

And born into bloom, 
Victor immortal 

O'er death and the tomb." 

The babe Frances could not sleep without the 
palm of her tiny hand laid upon her mother's cheek; 
the girl Frances lying upon the grass in the soft 
gathering stillness of summer twilight, would reach 
up her hand beseechingly for God to touch; the 
woman Frances, when all her loved ones had been 
transplanted to the gardens of the higher life, had 
followed that way with sublime and childlike trust, 
greeting her glad proof of immortality with the 
grandly simple words, "How beautiful it is to be 
with God!" 

The stillness was broken only by sobs as we closed 
the earthly eyes of one who was always a seer, and 
who now beheld the King in His beauty and the 
land that she so often said is not far off. "Dear 
Father, we give Thee back thine own," the prayer 
of all our hearts, was tenderly voiced by one of the 
stricken group, while my desolate soul responded, 
"And we thank Thee for taking her so gently." 

With sublime trust the broken-hearted women 
clasped hands and amid their tears tried to sing in 



TRANSLATION 273 

unison with the great white-ribbon family in heaven 

and earth: 

"Blest be the tie that binds 
Our hearts in Christian love; 
The fellowship of kindred minds 
Is like to that above." 

An hour later a smile of joy irradiated the sleep- 
ing face. She lay at the close of her life 's long day 
of loving toil — serene, majestic, supremely beauti- 
ful. She had sown many harvests of happiness for 
children and youth. She had built a booth in the 
desert for pilgrims weary and wounded. She had 
lifted the cup of cold water to many smitten with 
life 's fierce heat, and had seen the signal swung out 
from the heavenly battlements and had made ready 
for her departure. 

Before the early dawn, we carried the precious 
form of our beloved one to the home of her niece. 
"How radiantly beautiful she is," said all who saw 
her; "surely, it is majestic sweetness that enthrones 
her brow." Victory as well as the peace of God 
was in her looks, and so natural seemed her sleep 
that Katherine's little son sweetly called to his 
aunt as he was lifted up to look at her, and in his 
baby innocence tried to awaken her that she might 
take his pretty rose. The young mother's heart 
was deeply stirred, and she said, "Aunt Frank was 
just a dear, sweet baby herself, besides being the 
greatest woman in all the world." 






274 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

Thousands of hearts who read the sad tidings in 
the morning papers felt a sense of irreparable loss 
and personal bereavement. Cables, telegrams, let- 
ters, and flowers came hourly to the sorrowful group 
at the hotel, who, because of the great love they 
bore her, must not weep — but work. 

"We know no other woman," said Mary Lowe 
Dickinson, "whose home-going would have left so 
many other women feeling as if the sun had gone. 
And we know no other out of all the many noble 
women of our land whose going would so swiftly 
have marshaled the thronging stars. No one could 
fail to feel, as that brave life drifted serenely out 
beyond the sunset, the overwhelming loss and gloom 
creeping piteously upon the great hearts that loved 
her and the great work that she loved. The bitter 
loss, the sore hurt to both, could not be told in 
words. Genuine grief finds refuge in silence; real 
heartbreak sobs itself out to God. But light 
broke upon this shadow when from East and West 
and North and South began to gather the brave and 
tender souls that through many years had shared 
Miss Willard's battles for humanity, standing, 
some lower, some higher in the ranks, yet all in heart 
side by side with their leader. As one by one, or 
in groups, their white, tear-marked faces shone out 
of the gloom, we saw the stars arise; we knew that 
however human hearts might ache or break, Miss 



TRANSLATION 275 

Willard's work was safe. These rallying leaders, 
gathering in New York at the news of their chief's 
departure, were representative of a great army, 
that would in groups, or separately and alone, glad- 
ly have brought to their great leader and com- 
rade their own kind tribute of loyal and sorrowing 
love." 

Each day quiet groups filled the hotel parlors, 
where tears and sobs of strong men mingled with 
those of white-ribbon comrades and personal 
friends, as they sought to comfort and console one 
another. The only picture that adorned the walls 
of the room from which went home the blessed spirit 
of Saint Frances was the Christ on which the clos- 
ing eyes had rested, and just below this on the 
writing desk were grouped photographs of her dear 
ones. Bright, fragrant flowers gave a message of 
joy and hope, though the rain had not ceased to fall 
and the storm to beat against the windows since 
that winged soul had taken its flight. 

There came to our thought what Bunyan said 
of the end of the long battle which Christian fought : 
"Then, said Christian, 'I am going to my Father's; 
and though with great difficulty I am got hither, 
yet now I do not repent of all the trouble I have 
been at to arrive where I am. My sword I leave to 
him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and 
my courage and skill to him that can get it. My 



276 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness 
for me that I have fought His battles who will now 
be my re warder.' When the day that he must go 
hence was come, many accompanied him to the 
river side, which as he went he said, 'Death, where 
is thy sting?' and as he went down deeper, he said, 
'Grave, where is thy victory?' So he passed over, 
and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other 
side." 



CHAPTER XVII 
MEMORIAL SERVICES 

The next morning in the home of her loved niece, 
in the heart of the greatest city on the continent, 
in the state in which her eyes had greeted the light 
of earth, Frances E. Willard lay in her last sleep. 

Early Sunday afternoon, leading white-ribboners 
gathered like a family group about the beloved 
form. The dear one drew us close to her as she al- 
ways did in life. Surely we could fear no evil if 
this were death. Each heart received its own 
message, and to all she seemed to say, " Little chil- 
dren, love one another." Never was she so great, 
never so beautiful, as, "sceptered and robed and 
crowned," she lay among the soft linings of her 
silver-grey casket, whose only ornament was the 
broad encircling white ribbon. She was robed in 
a home dress of softest white; her fair hair was 
arranged in the old familiar way; the "little bow of 
white" was not hidden by the floral heart of lilies 
and cape jessamine that rested, by Lady Henry 
Somerset 's request, on as pure a heart as ever went 
home to God. Every care-line had vanished from 
her madonna-like face, and there was over it not 

277 



278 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

alone the hush of a great stillness, but the awe of 
an infinite wonder, the radiance of an eternal joy. 
The flowers of earth were all about her, and the 
perfume of the immortal flowers of the life beyond 
seemed to fill the room and pervade all our hearts. 
A hymn was softly sung, and Mrs. Stevens led in the 
Woman 's Christian Temperance Union benediction, 
which was followed by the temperance doxology. 

An hour later, at the Broadway Tabernacle — the 
church in which the voice now hushed had last 
spoken in New York City — the vast audience rose, 
and the organ's solemn requiem found a deep re- 
sponse in hundreds of sorrowing hearts, as the casket, 
draped with our beloved's favorite white silk flag 
gleaming with golden stars, was borne into the church 
and tenderly placed in a garden of heavenly bloom. 
The platform and chancel of the shadowy old Taber- 
nacle had been transformed, by those who loved her, 
into a tropical bower of palms and bright flowers. 

Rev. Dr. E. S. Tipple conducted the simple 
funeral service of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
assisted by Rev. Dr. A. E. Kittredge, Rev. Dr. R. S. 
MacArthur, Rev. Frederick B. Richards, Rev. Dr. 
Charles L. Thompson, Rev. Dr. Charles H. Payne, 
and Bishop John H. Newman. The Bishop offered 
this prayer: 

Gracious God, Father in heaven, forgive us if we 
mourn to-day amid this general grief; but we thank 



MEMORIAL SERVICES 279 

Thee that we do not mourn as those without hope, 
for Thou hast given us hope, and we come to Thee 
with thanksgiving upon our lips for all Thy loving- 
kindness unto this beloved, whom Thou hast taken 
unto Thyself. We praise Thee for her parentage. 
We thank Thee for her power, for her imperial in- 
tellect, for that vast amount of useful knowledge 
acquired to render her mission efficient and success- 
ful, and we thank Thee above all things for her 
loyalty to Jesus Christ in good report and in evil 
report, for her philanthropy, for her sympathy with 
the suffering humanity of all continents; and we 
bless Thee for her noble convictions, her purpose to 
elevate the race to sobriety and to purity. We re- 
turn Thee thanks to-day for her, we bless Thee for 
our association with her in the great reforms of life, 
for the sweet influence she exerted upon us, for the 
noble example she showed before others. She was 
steadfast amid all trials, and we rejoice in that beau- 
tiful Christian life she lived, that noble heart, that 
consecration of all her powers to Thee, which made 
her to have but one object in view — to do Thy will 
on earth as the angels do it in heaven, and to glorify 
Thy holy Name. And we bless Thee for that quiet 
death that Thou didst give her, that she might 
peacefully fall asleep in Jesus, and her spirit ascend 
to Thee, her Creator and her Redeemer. Now we 
ask Thy blessing on all those noble enterprises in 
which she was engaged, that they may reach a 
glorious consummation. Grant, we pray Thee, 
that this cause of sobriety which she pleaded with 
such eloquence, and of personal purity, Christian 
purity — this cause of temperance — may become 



280 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

a universal fact. May the governments of the world 
put forth a power that shall restrain inebriety ; may 
the legislatures of the world hasten to the redemption 
of humanity from all the evils that grow out of in- 
temperance; and we pray especially that Thy bless- 
ing may rest upon these noble women, these sisters 
that are banded together, consecrating their hearts 
and their lives and their fortunes for the accomplish- 
ment of these great purposes. We thank Thee, 
though our departed one has passed from life, that 
she yet lives in thousands of lives, lives in the 
thoughts, the affections, the aspirations of many. 
We praise Thee for this corporate immortality. We 
pray that this organization which she represented 
may be under Thy guidance, under Thy heavenly 
inspiration until the great work shall be accom- 
plished. 

And we pray especially for that dear woman who 
was her traveling companion on sea and land, whose 
pen was the pen of a ready writer; and bless that 
precious woman beyond the seas, the companion of 
our departed one, who is to-day thinking of this 
funeral occasion. May that noble woman be sus- 
tained by Thee . 

Hear and answer us, and when this brief life is 
done, may it be well done. May all our powers, 
having been consecrated to Thee, attain to a glorious 
consummation, and may we be more and more con- 
secrated to those great interests that will bring about 
the millennium of Thy glory. May we be more and 
more the instruments of Thy Power, so that at last 
when life is over we may sleep with Jesus and meet 
this precious woman and the thousands who have 



MEMORIAL SERVICES 281 

gone before, and, above all, Christ, our Lord. And 
unto the Father, Son and Holy Spirit shall be the 
glory, world without end. Amen. 

In rich tones of deep emotion and earnestness, 
Mrs. Lillian M. N. Stevens, Vice-President-at- 
Large of the National Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Union, read the Ninetieth Psalm. Mrs. 
Mary T. Burt, President of the New York State 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union, announced 
and eloquently read the hymn, "Blest be the tie 
that binds our hearts in Christian love," remind- 
ing white-ribboners in a few touching words of the 
many times at the close of National Conventions, 
that with hand clasped in hand, this hymn had been 
sung with our sainted leader. 

In closing the simple and fitting service in memory 
of a great soul, Doctor Tipple said, "The highest 
tribute we can pay to Frances Willard is to mention 
her name, sing the songs she loved, and pray to her 
God." 

"Was ever woman so beloved?" was the thought 
of those who watched for hours the slow-moving pro- 
cession of rich and poor, representing many sects, 
sections, and races, who reverently looked for the 
last time upon the face of their friend, each New 
York white-ribboner placing a white carnation 
upon the casket. 

The sad journey to her home city, Chicago, was 



282 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

made in a special car, in which the casket was 
surrounded by flowers and guarded by loving hearts. 
Stopping briefly at Churchville, New York, Miss 
Willard 's birthplace, in the church established by 
her grandfather, loving kinsfolk, neighbors, and 
comrades of Monroe County united in a memorial 
service led by the brotherly pastors. Mrs. Helen 
M. Barker, Treasurer of the National Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union, represented the 
white-ribboners in an appropriate address. 

At Buffalo a large delegation of white-ribboners 
who, four months earlier, had joyfully welcomed 
their president and the National Convention, passed 
sorrowfully through the car, leaving " lilies of love 
and loyalty" and singing with subdued and falter- 
ing voices, 

"Some day, somewhere, we shall know." 

Silently the snowflakes fell, surrounding us with 

a white world as we carried our dear one homeward. 

Honored representative men who had revered Miss 

Willard, received us at the station in Chicago. 

As the casket was slowly and reverently raised to 

the shoulders of the bearers, and borne along the 

tessellated corridor of Willard Hall, which her feet 

had so often trod, it was preceded by a guard of 

honor of her own Illinois women, who through their 

tears triumphantly sang the old Crusade hymn, 

"Rock of ages, cleft for me, 
Let me hide myself in Thee." 



MEMORIAL SERVICES 283 

The flags of the city floated at half-mast all day, 
while silently the people passed to take a parting 
look at their "great citizen.' , Said The Union 
Signal: "Chicago has never seen such a spontane- 
ous offering as the multitude laid at the feet of our 
chieftain, for it was an offering of love. For an 
hour before the procession reached the cross-sur- 
mounted portal of Willard Hall, there were crowds 
waiting for admission, and for another hour they 
patiently stood on the wet pavement, with the cold 
wind sweeping in sleety gusts against them, before 
they gained admittance. During the day more 
than thirty thousand people passed down the aisle, 
each pausing for a moment by the casket. There 
were children lifted in their parents' arms; there 
were decrepit men and women who leaned upon 
their sons or daughters for support; many hobbled 
in on crutches, and some looked as if they might 
have newly risen from beds of sickness." 

At the noon hour a brief service was held and 
many tributes were given. As the day waned 
and the doors were to be closed, Bishop John H. 
Vincent besought our Heavenly Father 's benediction, 
closing with these words: 

We give thanks for the life of our departed sister, 
for her loyalty to righteousness and purity, for the 
sweet charity that burned in her heart, dwelt in her 
eyes, and went forth in the sweet echoes of her voice. 



284 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

We pray that, inspired by her example, we may live 
the same strong and earnest life and do good service 
in the cause she loved so well. 

At Evanston, where hundreds were assembled at 
the station, the University students acted as escort, 
and when the beloved one was carried into dear 
Rest Cottage, her young relatives softly sang 
"Home, Sweet Home." At the door of Rest 
Cottage was fastened a wreath of evergreen gather- 
ed by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union 
and the temperance children of Oberlin, Ohio, from 
a hedge planted by Miss Willard's father, and in 
the dainty parlor hung a cluster of evergreen bear- 
ing this card: "Sweetbrier that Frank planted, 
Janes ville, Wisconsin." Bright flowers filled the 
bay window, and friends who passed quietly in and 
out felt that the room breathed the heavenly cheer 
always associated with the presence of those who had 
been its life. 

A simple home service the next morning preceded 
the one at the church. "How Firm a Foundation" 
was sung to the Southern lullaby air loved by Miss 
Willard. Standing beside the quiet form of her 
friend and leader Mrs. Lillian M. N. Stevens, of 
Maine, prayed with breaking voice: 

Heavenly Father, come near and tenderly and 
pityingly hover over us at this hour. We thank 
Thee for the precious life of our beloved — so full 



MEMORIAL SERVICES 285 

of beauty and nobility. Help us to understand what 
she meant when she said, "How beautiful it is to be 
with God." Help us to know more of that other 
worldliness of which she spoke and taught. We 
thank Thee for all the precious memories that cluster 
around Rest Cottage; for the life of Saint Coura- 
geous; for all the holy influences which have gone 
out from this home. Wilt Thou in tender love bless 
the niece and the nephew of our beloved and the other 
family members who are with us to-day, and the 
absent ones wherever they may be. Wilt Thou 
bless and comfort the one who has been to our pro- 
moted leader helper, companion, more than friend, 
who has been faithful even unto death. Wilt Thou 
console that great heart over the sea who is cast 
down by this great sorrow. Remember the white- 
ribbon sisterhood everywhere. Bless the world — 
for she loved the whole world. We humbly pray 
in the name of Christ, whom she loved so much and 
served so loyally. Amen. 

The sweet young voices of the quartette were 
again heard as the soothing words, 

"Gently, Lord, oh gently lead us," 

floated once more through the home, and the bene- 
diction was pronounced by the venerable Professor 
Emerson of Beloit, Wisconsin, in these words: 

Now may the blessing of the loving Father who 
has called the dear daughter home, and of the lov- 
ing Brother who has led the dear sister to the Fa- 
ther's house, and of the loving Holy Spirit which 



286 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

was the breath of her life here, and is so there, be 
and abide with us all, that we may be now and for- 
ever with the Lord. Amen. 

Reverent, patient thousands gathered in and 
about the First Methodist Episcopal Church of 
Evanston, where old friends and dear were to speak 
in sacred memory of the exalted life of their own 
Frances E. Willard. Love had outloved itself in 
lavish expression of tenderness, through flower and 
fern and palm and draperies of symbolic white. Be- 
hind the pulpit hung a large silk flag, made entirely 
by women's hands and carried at the head of the 
dedicatory procession of the World's Columbian 
Exposition in 1892. The owner of the flag had 
affixed an inscription which read: "This flag has 
traveled over four thousand miles of this country, 
and always floats in the interest of liberty, peace 
and arbitration. It floated over Miss Willard in 
life, and we want it to float over her in death." 
The "religion of patriotism" also shone forth in the 
Stars and Stripes that floated from the organ loft 
and draped the speakers ' chairs — our sacred flag, 
of which she wrote : 

"With its red for love, and its white for law, 
And its blue for the hope that our fathers saw 
Of a larger liberty." 

At this Methodist altar Frances Willard had knelt 
alone in the presence of her fellow-students and 



MEMORIAL SERVICES 287 

dedicated her young life to the highest ideals. Now, 
hundreds of students filled the galleries and stood 
in the aisles to do honor to one who called herself 
their "elderly sister," and whose glorious and God- 
like career they desired to emulate. 

The Willard pew, held by the family for over 
thirty years, was draped with white and filled with 
floral offerings. 

The words of the solemn processional were read 
by Rev. Dr. Frank M. Bristol, pastor of the church. 
Following him came the faculty of the Northwestern 
University, President Henry Wade Rogers at their 
head, and the pastors of the Evanston churches. 
The casket was borne by six students of the college. 
Honorary pallbearers, General Officers of the Na- 
tional Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the 
White Ribbon Guard of Honor, relatives and closest 
friends came slowly after, Miss Willard 's nearest 
relatives present being Mrs. Katherine Willard 
Baldwin, of New York, and Robert A. Willard, of 
Florida, daughter and son of her brother Oliver. 

"I wonder if she knows?" was the unspoken 
question of many a heart, as the casket was 
placed before the altar, amid such a scene of beauty 
as even the one to whom it was consecrated had 
rarely seen in life. The casket rested on a rug of 
roses and violets, and forming a radiant arch over 
the beloved sleeper was a rainbow of spring's 



288 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

blossoms — a bow of promise shining through the 
clouds. She has gone beyond the glory of the rain- 
bow, but the "everlasting covenant" remains. 
Beneath the rainbow, and caught away from the 
casket by a hovering dove, was a broad white rib- 
bon bearing in silver letters these words — the last 
spoken on earth, and, may it not be, the first enrap- 
tured cry of the soul set free from mortality? — 
"How beautiful it is to be with God." 

Bishop Bowman offered prayer, and the choir sang 
Tennyson's immortal ode, "Crossing the Bar." 

President Rogers was the first speaker, taking 
for his theme, "Miss Willard as a University 
Woman and an Educator." Mrs. Louise S. Rounds, 
President of the Illinois Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Union, spoke of "Miss Willard as a Patriot." 
Rev. Dr. Bristol read the "Crusade Psalm," and 
never did its anthem of praise and prophecy seem 
more harmonious with events. The congregation 
sang as best it could — for voices choked with tears 
— the Crusade Hymn, 

"Give to the winds thy fears, 
Hope and be undismayed." 

Mrs. Clara C. Hoffman bore witness to "Miss 
Willard as a Leader," and Mrs. Katharine Lent 
Stevenson spoke of "Miss Willard as a Friend." 
It was touching and peculiarly significant when 
Miss Johannsdottir, President of the Iceland 



MEMORIAL SERVICES 289 

Woman's Christian Temperance Union, in broken 
accent and with breaking heart, gave her simple 
testimony to our leader's love for other lands. 
"Through her, women all the world over are 
sisters," she said. "Over her grave we can stretch 
our hands to each other and make our life as she 
hoped we might make it, and so carry her work on." 

Dr. Milton S. Terry of the Garrett Biblical 
Institute contributed an exquisite poem. Rev. 
C. J. Little, D. D., late president of the Garrett 
Biblical Institute, made an address on the subject 
of "Miss Willard's Public Life." Rev. Charles 
F. Bradley D. D., then Professor of New Testament 
Exegesis of the Garrett Biblical Institute, in the 
closing address spoke of "Miss Willard as a Woman 
and a Friend." 

A prayer of benediction by the pastor, Dr. Bristol, 
closed this service in memory of the last of an honor- 
ed and beloved household — a home circle among the 
earliest to form in Evanston — and the classic town 
forgot all else in its desire to pay the last loving trib- 
ute of profound respect to its most gifted daughter. 
At the cemetery — beautiful Rosehill, its pure white 
covering of snow dazzling in the sunshine — the 
receiving vault was faced with evergreen, and 
branches of the same emblem of immortal life made 
warm and soft the pathway to the entrance. Those 
who were able to leave Rosehill with lifted faces 



290 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

were greeted with the glory of the setting sun. In 
the far sky hung a rainbow; with us there had been 
no storm, only the gentle rain that had fallen from 
sad eyes. Was that bow of promise sent to cheer 
and comfort? Let us take it as a message from 
Him and from her to look up, not down. 

On April ninth, 1898, at Graceland cemetery, 
three miles distant from Rosehill, Miss Willard's 
wish in regard to the disposition of the "earthly 
house of her tabernacle" was sacredly fulfilled. 
Drawing near to them in confiding frankness of 
self-revelation, Miss Willard had told her friends 
and the whole world in her autobiography why she 
chose the luminous path of light rather than the 
dark, slow road of the "valley of the shadow of 
death," stating her personal convictions on the sub- 
ject in these words: 

"Holding these opinions, I have the purpose to 
help forward progressive movements even in my 
latest hours, and hence hereby decree that the earth- 
ly mantle which I shall drop ere long, when my real 
self passes onward into the world unseen, shall be 
swiftly enfolded in flames and rendered powerless 
harmfully to affect the health of the living. Let 
no friend of mine say aught to prevent the cremation 
of my cast-off body. The fact that the popular 
mind has not come to this decision renders it all the 
more my duty, who have seen the light, to stand for 



MEMORIAL SERVICES 291 

it in death as I have sincerely meant in life to stand 
by the great cause of poor oppressed humanity. 
There must be explorers along all pathways, 
scouts in all armies. This has been my 'call' 
from the beginning, by nature and by nurture; let 
me be true to its inspiriting and cheery mandate 
even unto this last." 

On Sunday afternoon, April tenth, amid the Easter 
sunshine, a hushed and reverent company gathered 
at the Willard lot in Rosehill cemetery. The grave 
of Miss Willard 's mother was opened, the sides lined 
with evergreens, the mound of earth also hidden by 
green boughs. As the sacred ashes were literally 
committed to the precious dust beneath them, they 
mingled with white roses, above which were placed 
sprays of evergreen, sent from the birthplaces of Miss 
Willard 's parents, of her brother and sister, and of 
herself, and from Forest Home and Rest Cottage; 
then all was made radiant with bright blossoms, 
emblems of the glorious springtime. A moss- 
covered box, fragrant with lilies of the valley and 
pansies, and which had held a precious inner box of 
purest white, was placed over the mother's heart. 
Surrounding the whole> in beauty and fragrance, 
were the floral tributes of friends, and thus Frances 
Willard, that great woman who never lost her child- 
hood, at last "crept in with mother." 

The white silk banner which had draped the casket 



292 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

nestled close to the stone which bore the name of 
"Saint Courageous." The soft gray clouds drift- 
ing across the blue of an April sky seemed to pause, 
hovering over that open grave. High above it 
swung the bough of an old oak, from which fluttered 
down a few brown and wrinkled leaves, as if eager to 
share the Easter bloom. A maple, mossy with 
bursting buds, and a soft wind, sighing in the leaves 
of a solemn pine, seemed each to whisper a promise 
to guard the sacred spot. Upon the blessed hush 
broke the soft music of the hymn so often sung at 
Rest Cottage, 

"There is a land of pure delight, 
Where saints immortal dwell." 

Rev. Dr. Waters, pastor of the Emmanuel Meth- 
odist Church, of Evanston, repeated the Twenty- 
third Psalm, and offered a heartfelt prayer. Then 
again the music rose: 

"There are lonely hearts to cherish, 
While the days are going by." 

The hymn went on until 

"Let your face be like the morning, 
While the days are going by," 

floated out above the rustle of the last year's leaves 
and the whisper of the pines. And more than one 
bowed face was lifted with the look of high resolve 
that showed the breaking of the morning on the soul. 
Rev. Dr. Milton S. Terry prefaced the solemn 
burial service with the following appropriate address : 



MEMORIAL SERVICES 293 

It has seemed fitting and beautiful to select the 
holy Easter day on which to discharge the last office 
of affection and duty to our honored dead. And 
inasmuch as it has pleased our Heavenly Father to 
take to himself the spirit of our beloved sister, we 
bring that which was mortal to the hallowed spot 
where the loved forms of her father and mother and 
sister and brother have been peacefully waiting for 
her coming. We do here recall how she told us, 
while she was with us in her mortal form, that since 
the far June day when her sister Mary went to dwell 
with God, the world invisible had been to her the 
only real world. Now has she herself passed on to 
see and know the things invisible. 

So on this blessed day of the springtide, when the 
birds are singing and the flowers she loved are burst- 
ing into bloom, we bring the sacred treasure of her 
dust and place it by the fond mother, to whom she 
was wont to cling — not in childhood only at Forest 
Home, but also in life's serene meridian, when she 
was giving all her strength to repeat her sister's 
message to the world, and tell everybody to be good. 
She wandered far, and her voice has been heard by 
thousands of thousands in distant lands; and now 
at last, worn out with many toils in loyal service to 
the best Friend that woman ever knew, she hath 
lain down to sleep as if nestling once more in the 
bosom of the mother whom she trusted as the guard- 
ian angel of her early and her later life. 

We are tearful at her tomb, but we comfort one 
another with the thought that our Lord Jesus wept 
at the grave of Lazarus, where Mary and Martha 
were wont to go and weep; and like all those who 



294 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

know the power of His resurrection, we sorrow not 
as others sorrow who have no hope. "For we know 
that if the earthly house of this tabernacle be dis- 
solved we have a building from God, a house not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For our 
light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh 
for us a more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; 
while we do not look at the things which are seen, 
but at the things which are not seen; for the things 
which are seen are temporal, but the things which 
are not seen are eternal." 

After the Gloria Patria and the benediction, which 
was pronounced by Rev. Dr. Charles F. Bradley, 
of the Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, and the 
gentle covering of the grave in the soft, warm 
garment of friendly earth, the friends came one 
by one and spread over it their gifts of flowers until 
the precious mound was one fragrant mantle of 
Easter bloom. 

She had often said, "When I pass onward to the 
world invisible please do not say, 'she is dead,' but 
rather remember that I have entered upon the 
activities that are not succeeded by weariness." 
Gazing up steadfastly into the heavens, longing to 
follow her into the "sweet, the strange Beyond," 
we hear her beloved voice cheering us on: "Pro- 
tect the Home! Hold the Light up Higher! 

Higher ! 

" 'Help your fallen brother rise 
While the days are going by.' " 




STATUE 

(DESIGNED BY HELEN FARNSWORTH MEARs) 
STATUARY HALL, THE CAPITOL, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 

There is no state in the republic where the name 
of Frances E. Willard does not blossom like a famil- 
iar flower, no country in the world that has not 
occasion to bless her birth. Her name, to use Mil- 
ton 's well-known phrase, is "writ large" in the an- 
nals of her time. A nature with such variety of 
gifts, such combinations of excellences, drew to her 
side not only those committed to the reforms and 
philanthropies for which she particularly stood, but 
all lovers of humanity. 

How far her candle threw its beams was manifest- 
ed even more clearly after she had passed from earth. 
Children were named in her memory, fountains 
inscribed with her name poured forth their pure 
streams, memorials were placed in churches and 
philanthropic halls, institutions bore her name, her 
picture was repeated in thousands of halls and 
schoolrooms, libraries, hospitals, and homes, and 
her statue or bust was set East and West, in places 
of honor and dignity. Statues to commemorate 
women are yet few in our land. A bust to Maria 

295 



296 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

Mitchell adorns the fagade of Vassar Observatory, 
a relief of Alice Freeman Palmer forms a part of the 
beautiful monument to her memory in Houghton 
Memorial Chapel at Wellesley College, where also, 
in College Hall, stands the portrait statue of Harriet 
Martineau. In New Orleans there is a statue of 
Margaret Haughery; in Haverhill, one to Hannah 
Dustin, repeated at Pennacook; Troy, New York, 
has one to Emma Willard; Canterbury, Conn., to 
Prudence Crandall; in Providence, Rhode Island, 
is one to Elizabeth Fry. 

By an act of the Congress of 1864, each state of 
the Union was asked to place in Statuary Hall at 
the National Capitol two statues. These were 
to be chosen from her most illustrious deceased 
citizens and to be executed in marble or bronze. 
Illinois has the distinguished honor of placing there 
the first statue to a woman. Because she was pre- 
eminently a patriot as well as a reformer, that state 
wisely chose Frances E. Willard to represent her in 
our Valhalla of American heroes. There she now 
stands as she stood in life, peerless, heroic, represent- 
ing the womanhood of America. This beautiful mar- 
ble, a trifle above life-size, is the work of the sculptor 
Helen F. Mears, of Wisconsin. It represents the 
platform pose of Miss Willard with absolute fidelity. 
The pedestal bears this inscription in Miss Willard 's 
memorable words: 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 297 

Ah, it is women who have given the costliest 
hostages to fortune. Out into the battle of life 
they have sent their best beloved, with fearful odds 
against them. Oh, by the dangers they have dared; 
by the hours of patient waiting over beds where 
helpless children lay; by the incense of ten thousand 
prayers wafted from their gentle lips to Heaven, I 
charge you to give them power to protect along 
life's treacherous highway those whom they have 
so loved. — Frances E. Willard. 

On February seventeenth, nineteen hundred 
five, the regular business of the National Congress 
was suspended for the function of receiving and 
dedicating this statue. It was a day unprecedented 
and unrepeatable in the Congressional Halls, and 
well might it be called the apotheosis of Frances E. 
Willard. The late venerable Edward Everett Hale, 
who once remarked that there were two annual 
messages he never failed to read, the President's 
to Congress and Miss Willard 's to her constituency, 
opened the Senate exercises with appropriate Scrip- 
ture reading and prayer, and in the House, prayer 
was offered by the Chaplain, Rev. Henry N. Cou- 
den, D. D. Then followed the reading of the 
formal letter of presentation from Governor Deneen 
of Illinois, and addresses by Senators Shelby M. 
Cullom and Albert J. Hopkins of Illinois, Jonathan 
P. Dolliver of Iowa, and Albert J. Beveridge of 
Indiana; and in the House, by Representatives 



298 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

George E. Foss, Henry T. Rainey, and Joseph V. 
Graff of Illinois, Charles E. Littlefield of Maine, 
and Franklin E. Brooks of Colorado. 

Brief excerpts from these eloquent addresses are 
here given: 



Hon. Shelby M. Cullom, Illinois 

Mr. President : The State of Illinois presents to 
the United States the statue of a great woman, 
whose name is familiar wherever the English 
language is spoken. 

The Senate has frequently suspended its ordinary 
business to pay tribute to the memory of eminent 
statesmen who have passed away. For the first 
time in the history of the Senate a day has been set 
apart that we may talk of a woman. Illinois has 
been the home of many eminent men, yet, with so 
large a number of splendid men from whom to make 
a selection, the State of Illinois selected a woman 
thus so signally to honor. Mr. President, Miss 
Willard was a worthy representative of her sex, 
known to the world for her devotion to the cause of 
temperance, and for her efforts in the interest of the 
human race. The Willards were noted men and 
women of New England before and during the 
Revolution. Her parents were brave, honest, intel- 
lectual, strong-minded, patriotic Christian people. 






IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 299 

Mr. President, I esteem it an honor to have known 
personally Frances E. Willard during the greater 
part of her active life. I knew from personal knowl- 
edge of the work in which she was engaged, and I 
witnessed with pleasure the wonderful success which 
attended her efforts. She was a reformer, but she 
never shared the usual unpopularity of reformers, 
and her advocacy of reform in temperance never 
made her offensive to any class of people. Not- 
withstanding her public life, she was nevertheless a 
real woman, with that degree of sincerity and 
modesty that commanded the utmost respect from 
all with whom she came in contact. 

Mr. President, I am proud that the State of Illinois 
was the home of Frances E. Willard. 

Seven years ago to-morrow, the 18th of February, 
1898, the sad news announced that she was no more. 
It seemed that the world stopped to mourn. No 
man or woman of her time received such splendid 
eulogy, not only from those engaged in her cause, 
not only from those who believed in her creed, but 
from the best representatives of all classes and of 
all religions. 

The world is better because Frances E. Willard 
lived. She devoted her life unselfishly to the 
cause of humanity, and she brought sobriety into 
the homes of untold thousands; and at her 
death she left an organization that has been, and 



300 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

will continue to be, a potent factor for good in 
the world. 

Mr. President, the State of Illinois, in presenting 
the statue to the United States, to be placed in 
Statuary Hall among the figures of the greatest men 
that have lived in the United States, has honored 
itself, has justly honored a great woman, and has 
paid a tribute to all American womanhood. 



Hon. Albert J. Hopkins, Illinois 

Mr. President : When the late Senator Morrill, 
of Vermont, proposed to dedicate the old Hall of the 
House of Representatives as a national Statuary 
Hall, for the purpose of authorizing each of the 
States of the Union to place therein statues of de- 
ceased persons who had been citizens of such State 
and illustrious for their historic renown, or for distin- 
guished civic or military service, he little dreamed 
that the great State of Illinois in complying with 
that statute would select for one of her citizens a 
woman, in the person of Frances E. Willard. 

She was then a young woman. Her great future 
had hardly opened before her. She little dreamed 
at that period of her life that she would attain that 
civic distinction or historic renown that would 
warrant Illinois in selecting her as one of its repre- 
sentatives in Statuary Hall. 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 301 

The years that have come and gone since the late 
Senator Morrill caused that law to be placed upon 
the statute books of our country, saw Miss Willard 
advance step by step from the most humble begin- 
nings until her fame became not only national, but 
world-wide. Her services to her sex and to human- 
ity extended to every part of the civilized world, 
and when death claimed her, and her noble spirit 
passed into immortality, an enlightened and patri- 
otic legislature of the State of Illinois selected her 
as worthy of a place in Statuary Hall, dedicated by 
the several States to the most eminent and distin- 
guished of all their sons. 

When Miss Willard put aside the work of the 
schoolroom and entered the arena of the lecture 
platform in the cause of temperance and the purity 
of women, she entered the limelight of publicity, 
in which she remained during all the years of her 
great work in this and other countries. She did not 
escape the envious tongues of detractors, nor the 
sharp thrusts of keen critics. She undertook tasks 
which to the average person would seem insurmount- 
able, but to her were only incidents in the career 
which she had marked out before her. Her labors, 
her successes, and her achievements have been elo- 
quently portrayed here to-day by those who have 
preceded me. It is enough for me to note that no 
man or woman of her time wrought better or accom- 



302 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

plished more for the protection and upbuilding of her 
sex and the cause of temperance. The endearments 
of home and the quiet of her fireside were sacrificed in 
the interest of the unfortunate among both men and 
women. Her great soul carried her activities be- 
yond state and national lines, and led her to help 
the unfortunate in all countries and all climes. 

Her gentleness of heart, her charity, her firmness 
of principle, and her attractive personality made her 
a power that attracted to her the good women and 
men of this and other countries, and enabled her 
to accomplish a work that has placed her name 
high on the list of the famous women of the world. 
The work that she inaugurated is going on, and will 
continue in augmented strength and influence so 
long as time lasts. 

It is not strange, then, Mr. President, that the 
people of Illinois should desire to see such a life and 
such a character especially honored. Her services 
have been world-wide. The cause to which she 
dedicated her life reaches all humanity. The ability 
with which she prosecuted this life-work places her 
among the most eminent intellects of our generation. 
She possessed all the qualities of organization which 
have made such men as Marshall Field, Morgan, 
and Carnegie multimillionaires; a genius which in 
military affairs would have made a general of the 
first rank; legislative qualities which in the statesman 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 303 

would have made his name historical; oratorical 
abilities which have made such men as Beecher and 
Spurgeon immortal, and a charity which was heaven- 
born. 

Illinois in honoring Frances E. Willard to-day, 
by placing her statue in yonder hall, has honored 
herself and the women of our State and country. 



Hon. Jonathan P. Dolliver, Iowa 

Mr. President: There has been witnessed in the 
Capitol to-day a scene the like of which has never 
taken place before — thousands of children covering 
a statue with flowers, and thousands of women 
standing before it in silence and in tears. 

One by one the vacant spaces in Statuary Hall 
have been chosen by the States entitled to them, 
until now these solemn figures stand close together 
like a family reunion of the great ones of the earth. 
Statesmen and orators are there, secure in their 
renown. Soldiers are there, with sword in hand. 
Inventors are there, whose ingenuity gave practical 
ideas to the world; and priests to bless them all 
with the benediction of their holy office. 

We are met to-day to put in place another pedes- 
tal; to accept another statue donated by the people 
to the nation. It is brought here by a State rich 
in the household treasures of its biography, yet the 



304 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

great commonwealth brings here, with reverence 
and pride, a work of art so full of gentleness and 
grace that all the illustrious company about it seem 
to bow with stately ceremony before the white 
figure of this elect daughter of Illinois — Frances 
E. Willard. 

Lord Macaulay said of John Wesley that he was 
one of the greatest statesmen of his time. What did 
he mean by that? He meant that in addition to 
his preaching the Word he created an institution, 
compact and effective in its methods, which went on 
long after he was gone, in the execution of the 
beneficent designs which were in his heart. Exact- 
ly the same thing can be said for Frances E. Willard. 
And she owed to that organization possibly more 
even than she knew, because the position which she 
held in it made her office a central bureau to which 
reports were made of the moral and intellectual 
signs of the times; and no man can read her annual 
messages to the organization of which she was the 
executive head without perceiving that she had a 
strong grasp of all the great social and moral prob- 
lems of our time; a grasp so strong that to-day her 
words seem often like prophecies fulfilled, where 
twenty years ago they hardly attracted the atten- 
tion of the world. 

I think the highest point in the public career of the 
late Senator Hanna was that last speech of his before 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 305 

a meeting of laboring men and capitalists belonging 
to the Civic Federation in New York. Stand- 
ing there, without any pretensions to piety or 
sanctity of any sort, he laid down the proposition, 
based on a long experience as a laborer and an 
employer, and on an intimate acquaintance with 
the leaders of political thought in all parties, that 
the rights of labor and the rights of capital can 
never be established on a lasting basis of justice 
except as both bow in loyal obedience to the law of 
Christ. Frances E. Willard had, for twenty years 
before her death, taught that doctrine, not only in 
its application to the labor question, but to all the 
complex social problems of these times. 

Her chief title as a teacher of social and moral 
science lies in this: With a profound insight she 
perceived that the most difficult problems of civiliza- 
tion, the problems which have brought the states- 
manship and philosophy of the modern world to a 
dead standstill, if they have any solution at all — 
and she confidently believed they had — would 
find it at last in the actual application to the daily 
life of the world of the divine precepts which con- 
stitute the most precious part of the inheritance 
of these Christian centuries. 

And so I think that the general assembly of Illinois 
did well to set up this monument in memory of Miss 
Willard. The children who have covered it this day 



306 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

with flowers have paid to her a tribute so simple and 
so appropriate that its fragrance will fill these corri- 
dors long after the formal ceremonies of this hour 
have been forgotten. And in after generations, as 
long as this venerable edifice remains, the women of 
America, as they look upon the chiseled beauty of 
that face, standing like a goddess among our heroes 
and our sages, will whisper a word of gratitude to 
the people of Illinois when they remember the act 
of her general assembly, which, careless alike of 
custom and of precedent, has added to the title of 
their citizenship this perpetual dignity in the Capitol 
of the United States. 



Hon. Albert J. Beveridge, Indiana 

Through all time woman has typified the true, 
the beautiful and the good on earth. And now 
Illinois, near the very heart of the world's great 
Republic, and at the dawn of the twentieth century, 
chooses woman herself as the ideal of that common- 
wealth and of this period; for the character of 
Frances E. Willard is womanhood's apotheosis. 

And she was American. She was the child of our 
American prairies, daughter of an American home. 
And she had strength and gentleness, simplicity 
and vision. Not from the complex lives that 
wealth and luxury force upon their unfortunate 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 307 

children; not from the sharpening and hardening 
process of the city's social and business grind; not 
from any of civilization's artificialities, come those 
whom God appoints to lead mankind toward the 
light. 

Mr. President, all the saints and heroes of this 
world have come, fresh and strong from the source 
of things, by abuses unspoiled and unweakened by 
false refinements. And so came Frances E. Willard, 
the American woman. The wide, free fields were 
the playgrounds of her childhood. The great 
primeval woods impressed her unfolding soul with 
their vast and vital calmness. Association with 
her neighbors was scant and difficult; and home 
meant to her all that the poets have sung of it, and 
more. It was a refuge and a shrine, a dwelling 
and a place of joy, a spot where peace and love 
and safety and all unselfishness reigned with a 
sovereignty unchallenged. This child of our for- 
ests and our plains, this daughter of that finest 
of civilization 's advance guard — the American 
pioneers — early received into her very soul that 
conception of the home to which, as the apostle 
of universal womanhood, her whole life was ded- 
icated. 

To make the homes of the millions pure, to render 
sweet and strong those human relations which con- 
stitute the family — this was her mission and her 



308 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

work, and by the deep reasoning of nature itself 
Frances Willard's work was justified. 

But hers was no philosopher's creed. She got her 
inspiration from a higher source than human think- 
ing. In her life's work we see restored to earth 
that faith which, whenever man has let it work its 
miracle, has wrought victory here and immortality 
hereafter. Such was the faith of Joan, the inspired 
maid of France; such that of Columbus, sailing 
westward through the dark; such the exalted be- 
lief of those good missionaries who first invaded our 
American wildernesses to light with their own lives 
on civilization's altar the sacred fire that never dies. 
The story of Frances E. Willard's faith in the con- 
quest of evil by the good seems incredible to us who 
demand a map of all our future before we take a 
step. 

No method can measure what she did. The 
half million of women whom she brought into 
organized co-operation in the Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union is but a suggestion of the real 
results of her activities. Indeed, the highest bene- 
fits her life bestowed were as intangible as air, and 
as full of life. She made purer the moral atmos- 
phere of a continent — almost of a world. She 
rendered the life of a nation cleaner, the mind of a 
people saner. Millions of homes to-day are happier 
for her; millions of wives and mothers bless her; and 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 309 

countless children have grown into strong, upright, 
and beautiful maturity, who, but for the work of 
Frances E. Willard, might have been forever soiled 
and weakened. 

Mr. President, by placing her statue in the hall 
of our national immortals, a great commonwealth 
to-day forever commemorates the services of this 
American woman to all humanity. And the 
representatives of the American people — the 
greatest people in this world — in Congress formal- 
ly assembled to-day, are paying tribute to the little 
frontier American maid who heard and heeded the 
voices that came to her from the unseen world, and, 
obeying their counsels, became the first woman of 
the nineteenth century, the most beloved character 
of her time, and, under God, a benefactress of her 
race. 

Hon. George E. Foss, Illinois 

In pursuance of a resolution adopted by the House 
of Representatives on January 19, 1905, which I, as 
representative of the district in which Frances E. 
Willard lived, had the honor to introduce, we are 
here assembled at this hour to receive and accept 
from the State of Illinois the statue of this noble 
woman, now erected in Statuary Hall. 

The State of Illinois presents this statue as a tri- 
bute to the life of Frances E. Willard, and in a larger 



310 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

and truer sense as a tribute to woman and the 
magnificent progress she has made under our free 
institutions. 

The past century has been one of great progress 
in art, in literature, in science, in all things; not that 
it has produced the greatest poets in the world, nor 
the greatest authors, nor the greatest orators, but 
the century will be conspicuous in that education, 
enlightenment, and advancement have come to 
the many and not to the few. But the greatest 
progress has been that of woman. 

The Illinois legislature, without the slightest dis- 
respect to her great sons, in its wisdom believed 
that the time had come when woman should be 
honored, and when her statue should be placed in 
the American Pantheon. And who shall say that 
woman has no right there? What voice will be 
lifted to protest? Has all the wonderful develop- 
ment of our country ever since the time when that 
frail bark landed with its precious cargo of human 
freight on Plymouth Rock been accomplished by 
men? Has woman played no part in this tremen- 
dous national development? Has she exercised no 
influence on our national life? 

Time would fail me to enumerate many in- 
stances where woman has played a conspicuous 
part in our national history. Who does not recall 
how the early mothers endured the hardships and 






IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 311 

braved the dangers of life in the paths of civili- 
zation, and builded the home, and' planted the 
sanctuary, and worshiped their God out on 
the outposts of civilization, which later became 
the fortifications of freedom, of liberty and en- 
lightenment? 

Frances E. Willard herself once said: "If I were 
asked what was the true mission of the ideal woman, 
I would say, ' It is to make the whole world home- 
like.' " 

Illinois, therefore, presents this statue, not only 
as a tribute to her whom it represents — one of the 
foremost women of America — but as a tribute to 
woman and her mighty influence upon our national 
life; to woman in the home; to woman in all the 
occupations and professions of life; to woman in all 
her charity and philanthropy, wherever she is toil- 
ing for the good of humanity; to woman everywhere, 
who has ever stood "for God, for home, for native 
land." 

Hon. Henry T. Rainey, Illinois 

Until to-day no State has contributed the statue 
of a woman. No one imagined forty-one years 
ago, when this act was passed, that the heroic figure 
of a woman would ever stand beneath that dome. 
But the world is growing in more ways than one; 
and the world is ready now to believe that a courage- 



312 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

ous womanly woman makes as heroic a figure as a 
brave manly man. 

In the years which followed the war one of the 
forces most potent to sweep away the mists and let 
in the sunlight upon North and South alike was the 
army of women, led by Frances E. Willard, march- 
ing through the North and the South, following 
the white banners upon which she had inscribed the 
motto, "For God and home and native land." In 
the dark days which followed the war she furnished 
the common ground upon which all could stand, 
whether they lived under bright skies where the 
magnolia blooms, or under grayer skies in the colder 
North. 

She led the fight for the home, for personal purity, 
for better habits of living, for the rights of children, 
for the uplifting of women. Upon these great sub- 
jects she delivered addresses in almost all the towns 
and cities of the country containing a population 
of 5,000 and upward. On one of her campaigns 
she traveled 30,000 miles, speaking almost every 
day in crowded halls and churches. 

With chains of gold stretching across the gulf 
which divided the sections she bound together the 
homes of the North and the homes of the South, 
until the dividing chasm disappeared and a mighty 
nation moves forward under one banner with re- 
sistless force to the tremendous destiny prepared 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 313 

for it by the omnipotent God. If peace hath its 
victories, it is peculiarly appropriate that Miss 
Willard 's statue should stand here under this dome. 
In the State which produced a Lincoln, a Douglas, 
and a Logan we consider her one of our greatest 
citizens. 

Three hundred years ago, on the banks of a beauti- 
ful river in far-away India, at fabulous cost a king 
erected a tomb in memory of a woman. With 
towering minarets of whitest marble it stands to- 
day the most splendid building ever erected by man. 
The women of America have erected in memory of 
Frances E. Willard a monument, not made of mar- 
ble, which crumbles with the passing centuries, but 
made of that enduring material which withstands 
the ravages of time — a monument of human love 
and human admiration and human sympathy. 

She was a true child of the prairie. During the 
fifty years of her active career she lived in the State 
of Illinois, and from her modest, quiet cottage in 
the village of Evanston, where only the murmurs of 
the great lake broke the stillness, she issued forth, 
a modern Joan of Arc, to fight the nation 's enemies 
— aglow with purpose — wearing the armor of 
truth and womanly purity. She has won a place 
in the temple of the truly great. Frances E. Willard 
is dead, her soul has gone beyond the stars, but her 
memory lives. 



314 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

The State of Illinois — always the home of great 
men — mindful of the fact that she is entitled to no 
more places in this Hall, presents now to the nation 
the statue of this woman, cunningly carved, by a 
woman, out of the finest and the whitest of marble. 



Hon. Joseph V. Graff, Illinois 

The oft-repeated question to Miss Willard's girl 
students was, "What do you intend to do in life?'* 
The great object to her in education was the develop- 
ment of character. "What shall we do with our 
lives?" was the question ringing through her life 
as a teacher and reformer. She was proud of her 
sex. She strove to elevate it. She endeavored to 
broaden its opportunities, to enlarge its usefulness, 
to increase its influence, to uplift its purposes. If 
her life was viewed from the standpoint of her in- 
fluence upon the women of the United States, with- 
out regard to her work elsewhere or upon men, she 
still would be the greatest figure of our country in 
woman 's work and woman 's betterment. 

Her educational work gave a distinct impetus to 
the higher education of women, and accident played 
an important part in taking her from this field in- 
to the larger national work for purity and tem- 
perance. She displayed wonderful powers of organ- 
ization and executive ability as head of the National 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 315 

Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and as 
president of the World's Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Union, the latter of which she founded. 
Other women have become distinguished and 
national figures, but no one of her kind ever be- 
came so universally known and loved throughout 
the entire land in the humblest homes. She reach- 
ed down into the lives of the millions and made her 
influence felt, and broadened and sweetened lives, 
and changed their purpose for the better, to the ex- 
tent, perhaps, that no man or other woman of 
America has ever done. 

Mr. Speaker, I take great pleasure in, and congrat- 
ulate my fellow-citizens of this Republic upon, the 
fact that we place woman upon a higher standard 
than is done in any other civilized nation in the 
world. The dissemination of education in the last 
twenty years has brought about new ideals concern- 
ing the proper elements which make up the successful 
mother, which enables her to perform all of the duties 
connected with the fashioning of human souls, with 
the building of human character, with the fore- 
casting of the future of human lives. It is no long- 
er believed in the United States that a woman is 
sufficiently informed and equipped if she is able to 
do the physical duties connected with the house- 
hold. We now understand that she has the most 
delicate task of all occupations. She has the most 



316 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

important task for the future of the Republic, 
because this Republic rests for its safety upon the 
character of its citizenship. The child is the father 
of the man, and it is the women of America who give 
direction to the trend of mature life; it is the women 
who first implant the character of aspirations which 
afterwards manifest themselves in the active man- 
hood of the United States. So I say, Mr. Speaker, 
that the State of Illinois is going forward in taking 
this new step, when she presumes that the women of 
the United States, with the important duties which 
they have to perform to society as well as to their 
families, have a right to a part in this Hall, com- 
memorated to the forms of those who have done 
great work in the world. 



Hon. Charles E. Littlefield, Maine 

The greatest figure in American history — yes, 
one of the greatest figures in the history of the 
world — the immortal, celestial, martyred Lincoln, 
belongs to Illinois. She has many other illustrious 
sons. With all this wealth of material Illinois to- 
day places in this great Pantheon the statue of a 
beautiful Christian woman, who has a deserved and 
world-wide renown for "distinguished civic" ser- 
vices. 

By her own efforts she had "achieved greatness. " 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 317 

Without this legislative recognition her name and 
fame were secure. It was written on the fleshly 
tablets of millions of human hearts beyond all power 
of effacement. The beautiful marble, the enduring 
bronze, or the eternal granite, were not necessary to 
perpetuate it. It was as firmly fixed "as though 
graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for- 
ever." 

This is the first time that our Valhalla has been 
graced, adorned, and honored by the statue of a 
woman. Frances Elizabeth Willard can fittingly 
and appropriately represent her sex in this distin- 
guished and honorable company. Illinois honors 
herself by giving to womankind this noble recogni- 
tion. It is a most gratifying reflection that if the 
mighty and sainted shade of the departed Lincoln 
could have been consulted it would have no doubt 
concurred with hearty enthusiasm in this selection. 
She was the especial representative of a great cause 
in whose principles he religiously believed and 
whose tenets he faithfully practiced. 

In the brilliant galaxy of great women Frances 
Elizabeth Willard has placed her name. Her deeds 
have written it there. Educated, cultured, refined, 
journalist, author, and professor, she abandoned 
them all that she might devote her life to the ad- 
vancement and promotion of the cause that was 
near and dear to her, the sacred cause that has the 



318 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

soul-inspiring watchword, "For God and home and 
native land." 

Her gentle, persuasive ministrations proceeded in 
the faith that "the banner and the sword were never 
yet the symbol of man's grandest victories," and that 
the time was at hand "to listen to the voice of that 
inspired philosophy which through all ages has been 
gently saying, ' The race is not to the swift nor the 
battle to the strong.' " 

While she had extraordinary executive and ad- 
ministrative ability, she could not have accomplished 
her great work had she not been divinely blessed 
with qualities and graces of the mind, heart, and 
person that are seldom found combined. 

Attractive, engaging, and beautiful in person, 
with a musical voice of marvelous sweetness and 
purity, intellectual, logical, persuasive, and eloquent, 
she had a platform presence and manner that made 
her easily one of the most eloquent and effective of 
orators. 

If true eloquence is to be measured by the effect 
produced upon the hearers, she had few equals and 
no superiors. 

No repetition of her language can reproduce the 
charm that clothed it as it fell from her lips. She 
brought all the wealth of culture and learning to 
her work. That she realized the importance of the 
highest ideals in literature, and keenly appreciated 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 319 

the infinite harm of covering vice with an attractive 
garb and minimizing its wickedness and infamy, 
was vividly portrayed by her address on the presen- 
tation of the portrait of Mrs. Hayes. 

Statesmen, warriors, and patriots may strive and 
build and achieve, but all their striving, building, and 
achieving is in vain, even "as sounding brass, or a 
tinkling cymbal, " if it disregards the eternal moral 
verities, and does not conserve the true happiness 
and the highest welfare of mankind. This divinely 
gifted woman bent every energy, shaped every pur- 
pose, and devoted every aspiration of a godly life 
to the consummation of this happiness and welfare. 
It is meet that her work should be thus recognized. 

This statue stands, and always will stand, as the 
highest and truest embodiment of all that is noblest, 
best, and divinest in the womanhood of America, 
and the enduring memorial of "whatever things 
are of good report" in our Christian civilization. 



Hon. Franklin E. Brooks, Colorado 

Mr. Speaker: Colorado owes much to Illinois. 
From her we derived our form of State constitution; 
from her also we took many of our statute laws ; from 
her came many of the pioneers who helped to give 
form and shape to the State's new life; but no debt 
of Colorado to her mother State exceeds in impor- 



320 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

tance that which she owes for the precious gift of 
memory of the life and character of Frances E. Wil- 
lard. Herself one of the nation's empire builders, 
she appeals with peculiar force to the thousands of 
noble, constructive men and women who look to 
such examples for their guidance and for their sup- 
port. 

Miss Willard was unusually adapted to meet such 
needs. She had in her own life seen and been a part 
of the growth and development of two of our great 
commonwealths. She had played a most important 
part in directing and ennobling the life of those 
communities before she entered upon her larger and 
more enduring labors. The men and women of 
Colorado, who are trying to reproduce in the moun- 
tain surroundings of that State the ideas and ideals 
for which she gave her whole life 's devotion, find at 
every step abundant material in her history to serve 
as their own model, and to her they look for leader- 
ship. 

Her life has not been without its definite, tangible, 
present results in that State at least. Much that 
she labored for has there been achieved. Colorado 
is one of the four States of the Union which have 
accorded to woman full civic rights, which recognize 
in fullest measure her equality before the law, and 
place her on a plane in all respects equal to that 
occupied by her brothers. It has been a successful 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 321 

experiment, and the people everywhere give it a full 
measure of approval. In every line of civic activi- 
ties that commonwealth has received and has appre- 
ciated the benefit of woman's counsels, help, and 
active constructive work; and these counsels and 
that help have had a most stimulating effect in every 
phase of life. 

In her life Miss Willard graced and adorned every 
circle. She added strength and force to every 
council. She promoted and advanced every good 
cause to a degree that we do not yet fully appreciate. 
Others have recounted in glowing terms the features 
of her life, and have told what she did for civiliza- 
tion and humanity. I do not care to attempt to 
add anything to what has been said along these 
lines. Miss Willard stands now as a type of the 
loftiest endeavor of the later years of the nineteenth 
century. Such a life and such a work knows no 
sex. It is for mankind. 

To-day the nation joins in welcoming this newest 
addition to our Hall of Fame. It recognizes and 
pays glad tribute to her intellectual ability, her 
self-sacrificing work for her race, and the grandeur 
of her moral worth. It takes her into full fellow- 
ship with her heroes of war and peace, her great 
lawmakers and administrators, as one of those who 
have done great things for their native land. 

The State whose advent into the sisterhood of 



322 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

States marked the opening of the second century of 
the nation's life, can not and will not be unheard 
among those who at this time are giving utterance 
to the universal regard for her who is the cause 
and occasion of these exercises. Not only here, but 
in the lives and homes of her people she will 
perpetuate and cherish the memory of Frances 
E. Willard and strive to emulate and follow her 
example. 

Illinois, the home of her mature life and the scene 
of her greatest work, has given her an undying fame 
in the beautiful marble which now graces our halls. 
The nation has accepted the gift of that marble to 
cherish and protect. It is for Colorado, with the 
other States, to secure for her a monument more 
lasting than bronze, which is to be erected in the 
loving hearts of the thousands whose lives she has 
ennobled and uplifted. 



A commemorative service by the children of the 
Loyal Temperance Legion and of the Washington 
public schools had preceded the Congressional ex- 
ercises. In days to come, gray-headed men and 
women will show children now unborn the Willard 
Statue Medal bestowed on them in childhood when, 
as members of the youngest division of the Tem- 
perance Army, they had part in this sacred festal. 
Before leaving the Capitol, the ceremony of placing 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 323 

at the base of the statue a wreath of palms and laurel 
in the name of the State of Illinois was performed 
by Miss Anna Adams Gordon, Chairman of the 
Frances E. Willard Statue Board of Commissioners 
of the State of Illinois, who offered the tribute with 
these words : 

" We desire to express our high appreciation of the 
splendid men of the Prairie State who in Legislative 
Assembly voted to send to the United States Capitol 
the statue of Frances E. Willard. Thinking grate- 
fully of these men, and of those honorable gentlemen 
who in the United States Senate and House of 
Representatives have to-day spoken words of trib- 
ute to Illinois' most illustrious daughter, we place 
at the base of this beautiful memorial marble a 
wreath of laurel and palm, emblematic of the victo- 
rious life of Frances E. Willard." 

On the same evening a National Commemorative 
service was held in the Metropolitan Methodist 
Episcopal Church, presided over by Mrs. Lillian 
M. N. Stevens, who became the successor of Miss 
Willard as president of the National Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union. Dr. Edward Everett 
Hale, Mrs. Clinton B. Fisk, and many others 
participated in the exercises. Among the noblest 
tributes of the occasion was this poem by Mrs. 
Katharine Lent Stevenson, then national corres- 
ponding secretary of the organization: 



324 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

FRANCES E. WILLARD 

How still she stands ! 
The snow-peak kissed by morning's glad first-beam, 
The violet, bending to the woodland stream, 
The hush of twilight grey, before dawn's gleam. 

Are not more still. 

How calm she stands! 
Like ocean's voiceless peace, the waves below, 
Like winter's quiet, 'neath its depths of snow. 
Like the still heart of earth where all things grow, 

Is her great calm. 

How great she stands ! 
A mountain-peak her soul; an ocean wide; 
A river, sweeping on with full, free tide; 
A sacred shrine where holiest things abide; 

How great she stands! 

How loved she stands! 
Unnumbered souls their costliest incense bring; 
O'er all the world her name doth heart-bells ring; 
Love-notes to her e'en little children sing; 

How loved she stands! 

A Queen she stands! 
In her our woman-heart hath found its throne; 
Through her our kinship with all good is shown; 
Her white life makes our royal birthright known; 

Our Queen she stands! 

A Seer she stands! 
To her clear eyes Truth's radiant sweep unfolds; 
She reads what, down the years, the future holds; 
She sees things heavenly 'neath their earthly mould; 

A Seer she stands! 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 325 

A Knight she stands! 
A maiden-knight, whom fear could not assail, 
Whose eye flinched not, whose great heart did not fail; 
Who sought, and found, e'en here, the Holy Grail; 

Our Knight she stands! 

Stand, radiant soul! 
Here, in the centre of our Nation's heart; 
Forever of its best life thou'rt a part; 
Here thou shalt draw thy land to what thou art; 

Stand, radiant soul ! 

Stand conquering one! 
Swift down the years already leaps the morn 
Of holiest triumph, for which thou wert born; 
"Sought out," our land shall be "no more forlorn," 

Since thou dost stand ! 

A Frances E. Willard Memorial Fund was es- 
tablished at the St. Paul Convention of the National 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union in 1898. 
Under the provisions of this Fund a memorial day 
is held each year in all the auxiliaries of the great 
organization of which she was so long the honored 
president. The offerings of these occasions, 
now amounting to many thousands of dollars, 
are used for the extension and perpetuation of the 
principles and work of the Woman 's Christian Tem- 
perance Union. One can think of a fitting tribute 
yet unpaid to the memory of Miss Willard. It is 
to be hoped in some future day a generous minded 
gift-giver to noble causes will see that somewhere a 
chime of bells peals out on the air the sweet memory 



FRANCES E. WILLARD 

of America 's great daughter. She who loved music 
to the point of passion would thus be tenderly re- 
called through all the ringing changes of time. 

At the opening of the twentieth century, in the 
City of New York, on the grounds of the University 
of New York, was established a Hall of Fame for 
the preservation and exaltation of the names of the 
great of our country. To make the circuit of this 
Hall one travels a distance of nearly twelve hundred 
feet. Outside, the pediments, eight in number, 
hold these eight inscriptions: the hall of fame, 

FOR GREAT AMERICANS, BY WEALTH OF THOUGHT, OR 
ELSE BY MIGHTY DEED, THEY SERVED MANKIND, IN 
NOBLE CHARACTER, IN WORLD-WIDE GOOD, THEY 
LIVE FOREVERMORE. 

One hundred and ten electors chosen from the 
most illustrious men of letters, college presidents, 
the judicial bench, and the professional life of 
American citizens, compose a board that decides 
once in five years what names shall be added. 
Fifty-one or more votes give preference. Provision 
within the Hall is made in Colonnade Hall for one 
hundred and fifty names, each occupying a panel 
two by eight feet in size. Each candidate for this 
honor must have passed from mortal life ten years 
before the decision is made. 

In the election of 1910 were added to the twenty- 
nine already placed the following : Harriet Beecher 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 327 

Stowe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Andrew Jackson, 
Phillips Brooks, James Fenimore Cooper, Roger 
Williams, William Cullen Bryant, George Bancroft, 
John Lothrop Motley, Edgar Allen Poe, and Frances 
E. Willard. No nobler name could be enrolled than 
that of this educator, philanthropist and reformer, 
"who has made the world wider for women and 
more homelike for humanity." 

At the time of her translation, heartfelt tributes 
and messages of sympathy were received by cable 
and post from white-ribboners in all parts of the 
world. Hundreds of speakers, writers, and journal- 
ists, offered their tribute of praise to her service 
of life so loftily and so freely given. It would make 
another volume to record the words of noted clergy- 
men, educators, authors, statesmen, philanthropists, 
and leaders of temperance, peace, labor, and numer- 
ous other organizations. 

Paragraphs from a few tributes are here recorded 
because they are the appreciative words of noted 
and brotherly men closely connected with Miss 
Willard in the educational and religious life of her 
home city of Evanston, Illinois. 



328 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

Miss Willard as a University Woman and 

Educator 

henry wade rogers, ll. d. 

Former President Northwestern University 

We of the University honored and loved Frances 
Willard. Once she was dean of what was then 
known as the Woman's College, was a member of 
our faculty, and in these later years, of our Board 
of Trustees. She loved the University and was 
proud of what it had become. A few years ago 
she wrote of it, "It greatly outranks any other west 
of Lake Michigan, and richly deserves the name of 
'The Northwestern,' in the modern sense of that 
great and comprehensive designation. Steadily may 
its star climb toward the zenith, growing clearer and 
more bright with each succeeding year." The last 
speech she made in this town, which she delighted to 
call "The Methodist Cambridge of the prairies," her 
"ain familiar town," was an address to the students 
delivered in the college chapel only a few weeks ago. 
How little we thought she was so soon to pass be- 
yond the veil! But had she known then that her 
life was fast passing on toward the twilight, so ready 
was she to go, she might even have said to it: 

" Then steal away, give little warning, 
Choose thine own time, 

Say not good-night — but in some brighter clime 
Bid me good-morning." 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 329 

We mourn that she has been taken, but we do not 
forget that she was given. She has done a great 
work, grown weary and fallen on sleep. May the 
beautiful spirit which dominated her life inspire us 
all to nobler things ! 

In February, 1871, she was elected president of 
the Evans ton College for Ladies. At that time the 
institution had no connection with the University. 
She was the first woman to be elected president of a 
college. It is due to her labors that the town 
authorities gave as a site for the new college what was 
then one of the chief parks of Evanston. Upon that 
site was built what is now known as the Woman's 
Hall. She, with others, made the canvass for the 
money with which it was erected, and brick by brick 
she watched its walls as they climbed high above the 
trees. It was in her thoughts by day and by night, 
and she was fond of it. She said of it, "It is my 
sister Mary 's that died, and it is mine." 

In June, 1873, the institution was incorporated 
with the University under conditions largely dictated 
by her, and she became dean of the Woman 's College 
and Professor of ^Esthetics in the Faculty of Liberal 
Arts. As professor and dean she had her trials. 
She taught the classes in English, and met them in 
the president's room in University Hall. It was a 
new experience for college men to recite to a woman 
teacher. They tried her mettle only to find that 



330 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

she understood herself and them. They admired 
and respected her. She was popular and inspiring, 
and in every way a successful teacher. It is an am- 
bition worthy of the immortals to build one's own 
life into the lives of others, and this she was able to 
do to a remarkable degree. 

She was one of the early advocates of the higher 
education for women. This was to her a sacred 
cause. She believed, too, in the co-education of 
the sexes, and was wont to impress upon her women 
students that the experiment of co-education was on 
trial, and that in some degree its future rested with 
them. "God help you to be good!" she said to 
them. She believed, too, in the principle of self- 
government, and many a time rejoiced as she thought 
how true and self-respecting a set of girls she had 
around her. One who disapproved her government 
said: "The trouble is, these girls are quite too loyal; 
they make a hobby of it." 

It is difficult to overestimate what the influence of 
her noble nature and magnetic personality would 
have been upon thousands of students during all 
these years if her work had continued in educational 
lines, what inspiration for high and noble living, 
what pure ambitions to love and serve humanity, 
what strong endeavors for high scholarship and 
great achievement would have been born in the souls 
of the students coming into close touch with her great 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 331 

soul. She was eminently fitted to be a great teacher. 
One who has the power of kindling another mind 
with the fire which burns in his own, who can bring 
his soul into such close and loving contact with his 
students that they are stirred by his impulses and 
fired with his enthusiasms, has in the highest sense 
the teaching power, and is described as the ideal 
teacher. This rare gift our friend possessed, and in 
high degree. 

The nations of Europe seek to kindle the patriotic 
ardor of their subjects by putting on speaking canvas 
the immortal deeds of their great men. And in our 
own country a grateful public or generous friends 
enshrine in marble or bronze, or on canvas, the mem- 
ory of those whose lives have been a blessing to 
humanity. It is a gratifying reflection at this hour, 
that one of our own generous citizens will soon place 
in the keeping of the University the face of this wo- 
man whose life was a minstrel of love, and whose 
death leaves the world bereaved. Generations of 
students, as they look upon that marble, will be 
moved to noble living by the memory of her unsel- 
fish services, and they will find in it a noble stimulus 
to purity of life, and to a consecration of their powers 
to the cause of humanity. 

The winning personality of Frances Willard and 
her charm of soul made it possible for her to impress 
herself upon her students in a manner given to the 



332 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

few. She exerted upon them a far-reaching influence, 
not only by the thoughts she expressed in her class- 
room, but by her views of life and duty, which she 
revealed to them in her personal and private rela- 
tions with them. A quarter of a century has almost 
passed since she retired from the faculty, but all 
who were associated with her in those days have 
preserved pleasant recollections of the winsomeness 
of her personality, and the attractiveness of her 
spirit. We can ask no better thing to-day than that 
the benign influence of this refined, devoted, noble 
woman and teacher may abide in the life of this 
University for years to come. 

We lay upon her casket here to-day this tribute of 
our love and admiration. She has entered within 
the gate. She has been transfigured, and it has been 
granted her that she should be arrayed in fine linen, 
which is the righteousness of saints. On her head 
has been placed a golden crown, and she has been 
girded with a golden girdle. All the bells of that great 
city, the holy Jerusalem, have rung with joy, and 
it has been said unto her, "Well done, good and 
faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 333 

Miss Willard's Public Life 

REV. C. J. LITTLE, D. D., LL. D. 

Late President of the Garrett Biblical Institute 

Frances Willard reminded me, whenever I listened 
to her, of Matthew Arnold's definition of religion, 
"Morality touched by emotion." She was a con- 
science aglow with divine light. 

Her departure from Northwestern University, 
with its attendant circumstances, caused her intense 
pain; the remembrance of it was never without its 
tinge of grief. And yet this departure was, in the 
old New England phrase, a divine enlargement, the 
breaking of the chains that held her back from des- 
tiny. 

Her strong and only impulse at the time was to- 
ward the Temperance Crusade movement, then at its 
height. The religious fervor, the ethical purpose, 
the moral martyrdom, and the feminine character of 
this movement appealed to her faith, her conscience, 
her courage, and her conception of woman's latent 
power, and so she entered it "with a heart for any 
fate." 

All great moral careers grow out of the concurrence 
of conscience and opportunity; the compulsion of 
the soul combines with the compulsion of circum- 
stance, and the real life begins. Years before she 
had wanted to say something, but what was it? 
And now the disclosure came. All else had been a 



334 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

preparation for it — her maiden shyness and her 
maiden independence, the inspiration of her home, 
the revelations of nature and of books, the experi- 
ences of travel, the trials of the schoolroom, her 
search for God, her aspirations, her ambitions and 
her sorrows. The literary gift and the magic of 
speech were a part of her inheritance. And yet she 
trembled to appear in public. She had lectured in 
Centenary church, Chicago, in 1871. And this first 
public utterance contains the germ of all she said 
and did in after years. The sorrowful estate of 
women throughout the world gave her, she declared, 
the courage to become a public speaker. It gave 
her more. It gave her the vision of the woman of 
the future, for whose coming she thought and wrote 
and planned and prayed. But not until 1874 did 
she begin to speak with all her might, for then came 
to her the sign by which she was to conquer, "For 
God, and Home, and Native Land." 

Frances Willard had the gift of eloquence. She 
was a subtle, thoughtful, thrilling talker. Her 
presence was not imposing, yet it was always tran- 
quilizing at the beginning, and afterward full of 
sweet surprises. Her voice was clear and melodious 
and strong, with a peculiar quality of blended 
defiance and deference, of tenderness and intrepidity, 
that gave it an indescribable ring. Her diction was 
studiously simple; her reasoning luminous and 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 335 

homely; her illustrations full of poetry and humor; 
her pathos as natural as tears to a child. She was 
wholly unaffected, taking her audience so deftly 
into her confidence that she conquered them, as 
Christ conquers, by self -revelation. 

There was sometimes a lyric rapture in her utter- 
ance that wrought her hearers into a delirium of 
anticipation. The New Jerusalem of the twentieth 
century, the transfigured homes of a new common- 
wealth, seemed to be so near and so real. And 
there was always, when she talked to women and to 
men, such a sublime confidence in their latent nobil- 
ity, and their ultimate righteousness, that for a time, 
at least, they became in their own eyes the beings 
that she pictured them, and sat enchanted with the 
revelation. This blending of prophetic ecstasy 
with practical shrewdness, of rapture with woman 's 
wit, gave to her tongue the accent of both worlds. 
The note of gladness with which she mentioned 
Christ (and she did it often) lifted her auditors into 
the presence of her divine Companion, and then the 
childlike mockery with which she pelted some 
feminine folly, or some masculine stupidity, dissolved 
the splendor again into ripples of human merriment 
that brought her listeners safely back to mother 
earth. Webster was majestic; in the days of his 
grandeur men trembled at his godlike flashes. 
Beecher was superbly human, conquering and con- 



336 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

trolling multitudes by his rich and robust and royal 
manhood. Wendell Phillips was demonic, casting 
his auditors into chains, and arousing within them 
all the elemental passions. But Frances Willard 
attracted and enchanted; she spake as never man 
spake, and yet with the charm of Him who conquer- 
ed the grave in order to restore the shattered home 
at Bethany. 

The Willard children had a genius for organiza- 
tion; they played at forming clubs and making 
societies. Frances developed this skill during her 
years of teaching. She managed her pupils with 
rare tact, choosing for them both the direction and 
the method of activity. But the fullness of this 
power never revealed itself until she became the 
president of the National Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union in 1879. She stood for a liberal 
and a radical policy, and was indeed the incarna- 
tion and the inspiration of it. Of the multiplied 
energies that began to cluster around her fertile 
brain and nimble fingers, I have no time to tell. 
They proved too many for her at the last, exacting 
as they did a superhuman strength of mind and will, 
and pulling at her heartstrings all the time. 

It was natural for Mr. Gough to confine his 
philanthropic efforts to the temperance work and 
to the principle of total abstinence; it was equally 
natural for Henry George to expect the regeneration 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 337 

of society from purely economic change. But 
Frances Willard's mind was at once too broad and 
too deep, and her conception of woman's place in 
society too exalted, for her to grasp the temperance 
problem, or the economic problem, in this one-sided 
fashion. "Society," she rightly said, "needed 
mothering." She was indeed a preacher of tem- 
perance and of a new commonwealth; but she was 
also the soul of chastity, heralding a nobler mater- 
nity than the world had dared to dream of hitherto; 
and therefore the herald of a nobler manhood, a 
nobler society, and a nobler humanity. 

Like all idealists in the history of social progress, 
she took little account of time, so that the results of 
future centuries seemed as the stars do to the 
children of transparent skies, just above her head. 
And this immediateness of the heavenly vision made 
it possible for her to work and to tarry for it. She 
knew that it would surely come. 

Did she die too early? God must answer that, 
not we. She might have lived longer, if she had 
learned to spare herself, but then she might have 
lived less. Her fifty-eight years were rich in expe- 
rience and in thought, in grief and in aspiration, 
in affection and admiration and achievement. They 
were indeed more than centuries of common life. 
They were for her "years of enduring conflict for 
others"; for she was a worker, a fighter, a woman. 



338 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

And the shock of her death reveals the weight of her 
influence. She is no longer a voice and a corporeal 
enchantment, weaving about us the spell of a lumin- 
ous conscience and a pure heart. She has taken 
her place in the choir invisible — the choir audible 
forever to God and to humanity. Whatever may- 
be the future of the methods from which she expect- 
ed such political and social transformations, her 
ideal of home will not perish from the earth. The 
strong and serious women of the future will be her 
daughters, and as they bow the more to reason and 
to conscience, her image and her voice will guide 
them from the shadows of ancient bondage to a 
companionship with men in which the perfect inter- 
change of thought, and the perfect harmony of action, 
will reshape the heavens and the earth, and establish 
beneath new stars a whiter and a happier common- 
wealth. 



Miss Willard as a Woman and a Friend 

REV. CHARLES F. BRADLEY, D. D. 

It was thought fitting that the tributes to Miss 
Willard as a public leader should be followed by a 
few words concerning her as a woman and a friend. 

Yet it is impossible to mark here a well-defined 
separation. In a rare degree she threw her whole 
self into all her work. It was as a woman and a 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 339 

friend that she taught, wrote, spoke, organized vast 
forces and led them in the war for righteousness. 
In public as in private life she was ever womanly, 
and always friendly. The wealth of her regnant 
nature, the fruits of her varied culture, the consecra- 
tion of her devoted life — all these she carried, with 
her simple graciousness, into the intimacies of pri- 
vate life. The mourning of millions to-day is over 
the loss from our midst of a great woman, and a 
friend of mankind such as the world has seldom 
known. A certain Roman Catholic sisterhood bears 
the affecting title of "Little Sisters of the Poor." 
Of Miss Willard it may be truly said that she was 
the sister of everyone, rich or poor. Everywhere 
she went she met people with a winning smile and a 
cordially extended hand. She believed profound- 
ly that God is our Father and that we are all brothers 
and sisters. These beliefs were to her more than 
articles of an accepted creed; far more than beauti- 
ful sentiments. They were the controlling princi- 
ples of her daily life. Beyond any woman of her 
age, and, so far as I know, of any age, she has a 
right to the title of the Sister of Man. Everything 
which that name can signify of wise, strong, and 
loving helpfulness, that she was in purpose and, 
according to the measure of her strength, in fact 
to all. 

Yet, speaking of friendship in its ordinary sense, 



340 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

it is difficult to conceive the extent of her circle of 
friends ; to estimate the numbers of those in England 
and America and in other lands, who have the right 
to say of her, "She was my friend. " It was out of 
a wide experience that she framed the new beatitude, 
"Blessed are- the inclusive, for they shall be includ- 
ed." One who knew her well has said : " In nothing 
is she more marked than in her lavish kindness and 
truth to friends. It would be impossible to say how 
many lives which have touched hers have been in- 
spired to nobler purposes; have realized the balm 
of her sympathy in sorrow, and the help of her wis- 
dom in perplexity; have proved that even her 
wounds are the faithfulness of a friend whose very 
loyalty was demanding of them their best." 

But Miss Willard 's life has not only been marked 
by a universal friendliness, and blessed by a liberal 
host of friends, to each of whom she gave her affec- 
tion in rich measure; it has also been distinguished 
by a few extraordinary friendships. It is not the 
least of the sorrows of this hour that those who alone 
could speak adequately of the deepest things are 
unable to speak at all. Miss Willard 's love for her 
own family was most intense. The close intimacies 
in this circle were with her sister, her mother, and 
her brother's wife. The providences which ended 
these close associations opened the way to two others. 
One of these began in New England twenty-one 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 341 

years ago. Through all these years, amid many 
vicissitudes, it has never failed to deepen and 
strengthen. It is worthy a place among the few 
great friendships of history. The other friendship 
belongs to Old England, and is associated with 
scenes of romantic beauty. It united women of 
most diverse training, but alike in rare talents of 
mind, and one in their active sympathies for the fallen 
and the oppressed. When we consider the labors, 
the sacrifices, and the sorrows which Miss Willard 
endured, it is comforting to consider the sources of 
light and joy she had in these two radiant friend- 
ships. In both there was that absolute confidence, 
unfailing affection, and utter self-bestowal which 
make such devotion between man and man, or wo- 
man and woman, shine with a radiance little less 
than divine. 

The circumference of Miss Willard 's friendly 
sympathy has been truly said to have included the 
human race. Its center and source are to be found 
in Jesus Christ. Her whole life shows this. 

The greatness of Miss Willard 's powers, and the 
clear call which ordained her to eminent public 
leadership, often interfered greatly with the privileges 
of home and social life. She frequently expressed 
her sense of this loss, and her Evanston friends have 
sadly missed her during her long and many absences. 
But we could never doubt the loyalty of her affection, 



342 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

and we have never failed to love and honor her. 
"When I go home to Heaven,'* she said in her quaint 
way, "I wish to register from Evanston." That, 
too, was our wish for her. This was her home. The 
most sacred memories of her family life centered 
here. The most potent forces in her education 
were brought to bear upon her here. At this altar 
she took the vows she kept so faithfully. Here she 
received her call from Heaven and went forth to 
raise the fallen, to strengthen the weak, to relieve 
the oppressed. We gave her to the country and to 
the world. She has fought a good fight; she has 
finished her course; she has won her crown. Her 
victory the world knows. And the world, as if on 
waves of honor and grateful affection, brings back, 
as a sacred trust to this city, to Rest Cottage, to 
this altar, to our hearts, the dear form which was 
the temple of so much power, and goodness, and love. 



Miss Willard as an Orator 

REV. FRANK W. GUNSAULUS, D. D., LL. D. 

We are constantly told that the art and practice 
of oratory are declining, and that the triumphs of 
eloquence which have marked the history of earlier 
times have not been repeated in recent years. It 
is an interesting fact, in the presence of such a mis- 
statement, that Frances E. Willard's career would 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 343 

have been fragmentary and unproductive of much 
of its fairest fruitage, if, in addition to her large 
gifts of an administrative order, she had not pos- 
sessed and exercised that congeries of varied and 
often dissimilar powers which are the prerequisites 
of true eloquence. If theatrical display and vio- 
lence of enunciation, even though it be applauded 
by a throng of people, or combined with the for- 
tuitous enthusiasm of a great occasion, be called 
oratory, then surely this woman was not an orator. 
If ornament of expression must race with volubility 
of utterance in order that a speaker may produce 
effective speech, if brilliancy of imagery and simu- 
lated emotion must be added to these to win the 
triumph in such a great name as eloquence, then, 
indeed, Frances E. Willard secured not a single 
trophy for herself in this field, nor is she to be named 
among women conspicuous for eloquence. But if 
a great heart, fed by fiery streams from on high, 
glowing and molten with burning love for humanity, 
issuing forth its indignant denunciation of evil, 
pouring out incessant streams of argument against 
well-dressed error and fashionable wrong, kindling 
with lightning-like heat thousands of fellow-beings 
until they also flash to holy wrath which scathes 
the slayer and illumines the slain; if lifting millions 
of human beings from out the noise and dullness of 
unreason into the serene radiance of reason, so that 



341 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

they are willing to obey the highest ideals and to 
serve at any cost the noblest demands of humanity 
and God; if these be of the characteristics or results 
of eloquence, then, without doubt, Frances Willard 
must be considered one of the most eloquent of the 
orators of our time. 

Her voice had the harmonious swell, the exquisite 
flexibility, the varied richness, the height and depth 
which made her capable at all times of touching 
into response almost every string in human nature. 
At Baltimore, one of the greatest of our college presi- 
dents, who has made a comprehensive study of the 
forces of eloquence, heard her for an hour and a 
half, and remarked, at the close of her address: 
"The cause which she represents touches every 
interest of the human soul and body, and she has 
applied its persuasive appeal to every quality and 
concern of my personality/' It was a remarkable 
audience — more than a thousand of her sisters in 
her chosen work, hundreds of restless and eager 
college students, scores of doubtful conservatives 
and unemotional educators, long serried ranks of 
men and women standing on their feet, who had 
"just come to hear a woman slash into things"; but 
it is doubtful if, in that hour's utterance, there was 
not wakened in each soul some profound sympathy, 
first for her who made music in each soul's particular 
key, and then for the cause which seemed at first 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 345 

to each one a personal affair, and was indeed as 
wide as humanity itself. 

The writer of these words remembers the honor 
he had of taking Wendell Phillips, when his step 
was infirm and his health frail, to hear Miss Willard. 
Mr. Phillips was particularly struck with the "so- 
briety of this fiery temperance woman,'* and all the 
way home he talked of the great temperance speakers 
of the world. It was his amazement that such ad- 
mirable gifts of administration should have been so 
subtly interpenetrated with so poetic an enthusiasm 
and so earnest an optimism. He had spoken only 
a short time before, in the midst of the associations 
of culture, and before an audience most of whom 
were stung to anger by the old man's scorching 
irony and withering sarcasm. In that address he 
had uttered memorable statements with respect to 
the imperial importance of the temperance cause, 
and in his effort to commend that cause to fashion- 
able scholarship he had commanded and blasted 
and flamed. When he was told that Miss Willard's 
manner — her repose of strength, the consciousness 
she exhibited of reserved power, her wit and wisdom, 
her triumphant certainty of ultimate success — 
brought to mind his own characteristics as a public 
speaker, he proceeded to say that no man, possessing 
the heart to feel the fountains of tears behind Miss 
Willard's speech, could have kept his steadiness 



346 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

and practiced such restraint upon his emotions. 
" It takes a woman to do that," he said. He laughed 
dryly as he continued: "Ah, yes! But she is only 
one of the weaker vessels, as we are told." 

Accosted the next day by an autograph hunter, 
who was held by the old man far toward the night, 
as he showed him relics of the abolitionists and mem- 
orials of his own labors, he was about to bid the 
young man good evening, when the latter, half 
patronizingly, said: "Mr. Phillips, I think if I had 
lived in your time, I would have been heroic, too." 
Phillips, as he stood on the doorstep, pointed to 
the open places of iniquity near his dwelling place, 
and said: "Young man, you are living in my time, 
and in God's time. Did you hear Frances Willard 
last night? Be assured, no man would have 
been heroic then who is not heroic now. Good 
night." 

John G. Whittier, the old Quaker poet, was right 
when he said of Miss Willard: "I always want to 
tell her, 'Thee must know thee is great only as thy 
cause makes thee great. Thee might be only a lot 
of good qualities if thee had not been fused.' " It 
is true the commanding cause held her intellectual 
and spiritual and physical powers in unity, and 
actually fused them into a white heat, which, how- 
ever, never left the bounds of safety save in 
radiance. 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 347 

Frances Willard's Mission and Message 
bishop frank m. bristol, d. d. 

With a spirit as dauntless as it was exquisite in its 
refinement, and elegant in its tastes, Frances E. 
Willard lifted her beautiful life to God in as complete 
a consecration as ever made a heroine or a saint. 
Then, panoplied with the armor of righteousness 
white and glistening, she went forth, the Joan of 
Arc of Temperance, to battle for God, and home, 
and native land. 

She could not be happy in ease and seclusion while 
she was conscious of a larger duty, a duty that 
transcended all her dreams of self-interest and 
personal enjoyment. Looking out from the elms, 
out of the windows of Rest Cottage, she had a vision 
and a dream of possibility, of the task of rescue and 
reform, and of the need of hearts and brains and 
hands to take up and perform the task. 

"So many worlds, so much to do, 
So little done, such things to be." 

Thus came the thought to her, and from her comes 
the message to us all: "The holy place to-day is not 
found in the sanctuary or on the mountain, in the 
cell of the monastery, in the sweet quiet of ease and 
culture, in Rest Cottage, but the holy place is in the 
life of humanity, in the midst of the world's sorrow, 
and wrongs, and struggles, in the center of society, 



348 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

in the great heart of the age. There is thy work, thy 
mission. From that holy place alone can man or 
woman pray to be heard, worship to be accepted, 
believe to be saved." So this noble woman, this 
great soul of light, stepped down into the midst of 
the sorrow, wrong, and strife, and there broke the 
alabaster box and poured the rich gifts of purity, 
love, and hope upon the sick heart of the world. 

With all the brilliancy of her wit, and all the eager- 
ness and keenness of her superb intellectuality, 
Frances Willard was a simple, unaffected, devout 
Christian. The faith of her girlhood ripened into 
the hope and sweet charity of her great womanhood. 
A tender affection, which was the very poetry and 
sanctity of love, made home an emblem and proph- 
ecy of heaven, the holiest spot on earth to her. 
Rest Cottage, in beautiful, classical Evanston, was 
the center of the world to her heart. But when her 
loved ones vanished one by one from her side, God 
was saying: " There is a wider home for your affec- 
tion; thou art the daughter of mankind, the sister of 
the world." Manhood never had a truer human 
friend than Frances Willard. To save that manhood 
in the flowering promise and glory of its youth was 
her beautiful, heroic mission. She saw how the 
saloon was rising up to smite the heart and brain, 
the virtue and intellect, of American manhood, and 
with all the courage, devotion, and love of as splendid 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 349 

a womanhood as God ever inspired, she unfurled the 
banner of purity, and unsheathed the gleaming 
sword of her eloquent convictions, to rescue that 
manhood from shame. 

As a speaker she possessed all the essential gifts 
and graces of persuasion. Her convictions were 
eloquence. Her very instincts were logic. Her 
womanliness was moral magnetism. Elegant in 
diction, clear as a mountain stream in her thoughts, 
her fancy fairly scintillating with beauty and 
originality, intense but self-restrained, sincere but 
not harsh, strong but never coarse, commanding but 
never domineering, forceful but never masculine, 
she preserved that delicate, indefinable charm of 
womanliness in her public career, which ever im- 
presses American manhood with a reverence next 
to that which he owes and renders unto God. 

When we sum up the life of a genius, we ask, 
"What was his or her great dominating love?" 
This must be the criterion of the character, however 
immeasurable the genius. 

We know that Sappho loved her song, and Angelo 
loved his art, that Mozart loved the harmonies, that 
Napoleon loved the sword, that Wordsworth loved 
the flowers, streams and hills, and Newton loved the 
stars of heaven, but Frances Willard, with all her 
fine tastes, liberal education, and splendid intellect- 
uality, loved humanity. Above all art and song, 



350 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

above all pomp and power, above all science and 
nature, she loved humanity, and gave herself to 
humanity, as others had given themselves to pleas- 
ure, to fame, to science, art and learning. In her 
work for humanity, we find the achievements of her 
fine genius. Her poems are hearts made purer and 
happier by her ministry of love and sisterhood. 
Her pictures are lives transformed and glorified 
with a new hope. Her harmonies are families re- 
united and homes restored to joy. Her discoveries 
are the souls found in darkness and brought to the 
light of God. Her conquests are the better senti- 
ments, holier purposes, cleaner customs, and more 
righteous laws, which are slowly but surely and 
inevitably destroying the drink habit, crushing 
the rum power, and emancipating our country and 
humanity from its moral slaveries. 

Not alone to those who devote themselves to the 
holy cause of temperance, but to all who would 
serve humanity, and lead the world to Christ and 
light, does the life of Frances Willard become a mes- 
sage of inspiration. More and more did she come 
to recognize the fact that to save humanity you must 
save its womanhood. 

Frances Willard's mission and message were to 
call the Christian, American womanhood of this age 
up to its noblest rights, its highest ideals, its most 
self-sacrificing ministry of love, its grandest pos- 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 351 

sibilities of power and usefulness. Hence all re- 
forms, all charities, all missions, controlled by the 
new womanhood have felt, and will ever feel, the 
charm and inspiration of Frances Willard's character 
and life. 

One of the characteristics and chief glories of that 
splendid life was its unfailing and infectious optim- 
ism. Frances Willard never lost faith in the ulti- 
mate triumph of the temperance reform. Her faith 
in God and justice, in humanity and right, filled 
her heart with the prophecy of victory. Her 
glorious hope and magnificent courage have thrilled 
the exultant souls of thousands, and given new 
emphasis to the grand old proverb: "What woman 
wills, God wills." 

Surely the magnetism and inspiration of that life 
have not passed away. Still do thousands say as 
they recall their glorious leader: 

"Some novel power 
Sprang up forever at a touch, 
And hope could never hope too much 
In watching thee from hour to hour." 

To-day, and evermore, her name belongs to 
the world's history of heroism — it is the her- 
itage of every hoping, aspiring heart and people — 
it is the name we love and honor — Frances E. 
Willard. 



352 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

A Prophetess of Self-Renunciation 

REV, NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS, D. D. 

Our city has just buried one of its noblest daugh- 
ters, whose achievements for God and home and 
native land were such as to rank her as one of the 
most famous women of this century. Only those 
who have lingered long over her books and essays, 
or have passed under the full spell of her luminous 
speech, or have considered her wide-reaching influ- 
ence upon our education, our civic institutions, can 
understand why it is that two continents mourn for 
our prophetess of self-renunciation. When Mme. 
De Stael and George Eliot were borne to the tomb, 
it could not be said of these daughters of genius that 
in a thousand towns and cities the multitudes 
assembled in church or hall to sit with bowed heads 
and saddened hearts, keeping a sacred tryst with 
memory during that solemn hour when afar off 
memorial words were being spoken above the silent 
dead. Last Wednesday morning, midst falling snow 
and sleet, when the gray dawn was passing over the 
city, the funeral car of Frances Willard drew slowly 
into the station. The long sidewalks, the vast 
building itself, the outer squares and streets, were 
thronged and crowded with a multitude assembled 
to meet the body of a woman whose life and words 
and spirit had helped redeem them to the higher life, 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 353 

and made the years worth living. Then all day long 
the multitudes surged and thronged into the hall 
that bore her name, until fully 30,000 people had 
passed in and out. 

Beside that bier also stood pilgrims from Florida 
and from two other Southern states, people of wealth, 
united to this woman by no blood ties, but who in 
their homes of luxury felt themselves to be her 
debtors. These having made their way unto this 
clime of ice and snow, that they might look for a 
moment upon the face of one who had increased their 
happiness and lessened their misery, made their way 
back unto the land of fruits and flowers, where they 
hope again to gain their health. If titled folk of 
foreign cities cabled sympathy and sent wreaths and 
flowers, the children of poverty and suffering also 
crowded the streets along that line of funeral march. 
The death of what private individual since Abraham 
Lincoln's time has called forth a thousand memorial 
funeral services upon the afternoon of one day? 
The time is not yet come for the analysis of Frances 
Willard's character or for the full exhibition of her 
mental and moral traits. Among her divine gifts 
must be included a body firmly compacted and of 
unique endurance, yet delicately constituted as an 
reolian harp; a voice sweet as a flute, yet heard of 
thousands; rare common sense; strength of reason 
and memory; singular insight into human nature; 



354 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

intuitive knowledge of public men and measures; 
tact, sympathy, imagination, enthusiasm, with a 
genius for sacrifice and self-renunciation. Early 
successful as an authoress, highly honored with 
position or rank in the realm of higher education, she 
turned her back upon all offers of promotion. 

The measure of a career is determined by three 
things: First, the talent that ancestry gives; second, 
the opportunity that events offer; third, the move- 
ments that the mind and will conceive and compel. 
Doubtless for Frances Willard ancestry bestowed 
rare gifts, and the opportunity was unique, but that 
which her mind and heart compelled is beyond all 
measurement. As in times past orators have used 
the names Howard and Nightingale for winging 
their words, so for all the ages to come editors and 
publicists and speakers will hold up the name of 
Willard for the stimulus and inspiration of humanity. 



To convey an entirely adequate impression of a 
character so unique, so gifted, so lofty of aim and 
glorious in achievement, would be an impossible 
task. Sprung from a long and gracious race, her 
childhood and youth singularly shielded and trained 
for her great after-service, educated in lines calculat- 
ed to give a generous opening of mind and profundity 
of conviction, capable of great indignation against 
wrong-doing while retaining the utmost spirit of love 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 355 

toward the wrong-doer, with a divine art of drawing 
out the noblest side of every soul she touched, 
Frances E. Willard remains to-day, as in her earthly 
form, the "best known and best loved" among 
women reformers of her time — a memory sanctified 
and endeared in the hearts of all those who care for 
the well-being of the world. 



356 FRANCES E. WILLARD 

TRANSFIGURED 

REV. MILTON S. TERRY, D. D., LL. D. 

Is that soft light a star? 
Or through the dimness of our tearful eyes 
Are we descrying in the open skies 

Some lovelier sight afar? 

Perhaps to us is given 
Another vision of that wondrous sign 
Revealed of old to St. John, the divine, 

When in the open heaven 

By angels guarded round, 
Was seen a woman with the sun arrayed, 
The moon beneath her feet, and her fair head 

With twelve stars brightly crowned. 

I 'm sure I see a light 
That beckons many to a holier sphere, 
And with its steady shining, calm and clear, 

There seems to be no night. 

'Tis the transfigured face 
Of saintly gifted Prophetess serene, 
Whose woman-soul could take of things unseen 

And give them sightly grace. 



IN MEMORY OF A GREAT LIFE 357 

To her, God 's love assigned, 
Amid the rush of human cares and fears, 
Nigh threescore beautiful and hallowed years 

To honor womankind. 

Say not, "She is not here"; 
Methinks her eye beams with a brighter ray, 
And never mightier, sweeter, than to-day 

Was her voice, far or near. 

And woman's rights and wrongs, 
And mortal sorrows, and the drunkard's woes, 
And virtue 's claims, by her life 's sudden close 

Have found ten thousand tongues. 

Hushed are all envies now, 
Nor breathes the soul would take away from sight 
One ray of the aureole of light 

That gathers round her brow. 

O pure white life divine! 
Translated into everlasting day, 
Thou shalt pass never from our hearts away, 

For Christ 's own loves were thine. 



SEP 21 1912 



